“The plan is to not lose your mind and stay in it, honestly, and that's what I did,” said Ken Roczen on how to deal with race-long pressure from Cooper Webb. Once again, Webb made the most of the situation and emerged with a win, furthering his reputation as his the late-race master. Roczen, though, didn’t fold and didn’t fade. He was strong to the end, which has been a theme of his all season so far.
“I just went as fast as I could, but, like in some of the turns, I just wasn't quite riding as loosely as I wanted to, so I kind of had to pick my battles as well because I wanna make it all the way to the end,” said Roczen. “I just didn't [quite hold on for the win]. I just kept looking forward and didn't really worry about what was going on behind me and even though you have to be aware of what's going on in a way, you know, but I didn't let it freak me out or anything. I knew it was going to be a battle all the way to the checkered flag and I just gave it everything I could.”
Roczen has long ago moved into a don’t let the highs get too high and the lows get too low mentality (and that actually includes his take on lapped traffic, which we will get into later.) He nearly had his first win of the year, Webb overhauled him again, but he’s not going to let it bug him.
“I handled it to the best of my capabilities and we're just gonna go back and keep putting in work and just see if I can up the intensity even a little bit more for longer. That's kind of like the game.
“It was a tough one,” explained Roczen of trying to hold off Webb. “Just the turns, they were quite open, right? And if you're up front and you have a little bit of a gap, like you want to sweep them as good as you can and carry momentum and stuff, but then when somebody's really close, you're kind of gambling with that. Like even after the finish line I went really wide on the landing and I felt like I missed all the bumps, so that was really good. But then if I protect the inside and he’s right behind me, he sees that I'm going right there. You know, what do you do?”
A week ago Roczen crashed out of the race in Tampa after colliding with lapped traffic, and it was costly in the standings. By finishing second in Detroit ahead of Sexton (who got stuck in the gate at the start) Kenny made up a little bit of ground and now sits 15 points back. He’s already cooled down on the incident from Tampa, though. He said he was only mad for “about 15 or 20 minutes because there was nothing I could do about it. I was frustrated just mainly that I couldn't keep riding, but I wasn't dwelling on it and it seemed like everybody else was, you know, they were talking about it more, but I just forgot about it and. Kept focusing forward because it was over at that point, honestly.”
What was more important for Roczen was a rebound in Detroit.
“It's freaking awesome being in it, honestly,” he says. “I'm having so much fun. That's honestly what I was obviously the most bummed about [after Tampa] like just for once being only a couple of points back and then having to play catch up again. You have to come back the next week and I was aware that I have to rebound quickly or else it's just becomes a drag a little bit. Coming here I knew I had to execute that I did in a way. Maybe not with a win, but at least I didn't lose any points, but rather gained a couple of points. So everything's still good. We got a lot of racing to go and I'm gonna try to do the same thing next weekend. This race was very important for me and I'm happy with how it ended up.”
