“I honestly wasn’t expecting it,” said Webb. “I get it. You’ve got to try what you can, but I was a little annoyed, to be fair. I get it. It’s racing. If you go for the front wheel and make it work and break some spokes or whatever the logic was, I get it. But at the same time, it was quite a bit of a big points gap.”

Unfortunately for Roczen it was both too little and too late. During the second half of the season, fans have been begging for Roczen to rough up Webb, to get aggressive, to flip the script. He chose instead to just ride his own race and stay away, until the finale, when the points gap was too large for it to matter, and the aggression not nearly enough to create the kind of desperate chaos needed.

Instead, it just fell back into Webb’s hands. Again he was better than Roczen later in the race, but this time he even had an excuse to pass him with contact. So Webb got inside and hit him, and the air completely burst out of Roczen’s balloon. Ken dropped from podium position all the way back to tenth. It was his worst result of the season.

All year the debate on Roczen has been mental versus physical. He’s amazing early in the races but can’t hold it late. Is this simply his body breaking down or is it pressure getting the best of him? Is it Webb stepping up mentally when it matters, or wearing him down physically?

We only have Roczen’s words from a Honda HRC press release to know:

Roczen mentioned the struggle with altitude. It might have messed with his breathing late in the race, and hence caused his late-race swoon. Many won’t want to hear that, because it’s obvious the moment Webb passed him and the title had officially slipped away that his riding slipped completely, too. He was deflated, but not just from altitude. The final mix of what was mental and what was physical? Only one man knows.

It was a long season with a consistent, repeated theme. Roczen looking good, Webb managing to turn it the other way. One last pass at Salt Lake City served as a symbolic look at the entire season as a whole.