Roczen: "I made a big mistake on lap two and went down"
Ken Roczen's flying start to 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross hit a snag on Saturday when a bad start and early crash left him just about last early in the 450 main at Anaheim 2. If you watch the start of the main event, you'll see Roczen gets a bad jump off the line and is then immediately cut off by Chase Sexton, sending Roczen to the back of the pack entering turn one. Then he fell. He fought back to eighth to salvage points, but following back-to-back podiums to start the year, Roczen is now fourth in the closely-grouped series' standings, just one point behind Chase Sexton for third.
“Anaheim 2 was not quite the night that we wanted. My starts just weren't there, and I made a big mistake on lap two and went down,” said Roczen in a Suzuki statement. “We charged from 21st to eighth and left it all out on the track. That was as far up as I could [reach]. Luckily, I didn't lose too many points, so on that side of things it's all good. I'm pumped on the effort we all put in, and sometimes that's just the way it goes. So, we're going to try again in Houston.”
Houston will mark the first Triple Crown event of the season, and Roczen, on the Progressive Insurance Cycle Gear Ecstar Suzuki, has done well in that format before.
| Position | Rider | Hometown | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Hunter Lawrence | Landsborough, Australia  | 171 |
| 2 |  Eli Tomac | Cortez, CO  | 170 |
| 3 |  Ken Roczen | Mattstedt, Germany  | 151 |
| 4 |  Cooper Webb | Newport, NC | 151 |
| 5 |  Chase Sexton | La Moille, IL | 122 |
The brighter spot on the Suzuki squad for the weekend came from Jason Anderson, who netted fourth and led a ton of laps at Anaheim.
“The weekend here at Anaheim 2 went pretty well,” Anderson said after the race. “Practice was mediocre, I qualified ninth overall. In my heat race I was able to get a third, and then in the main event I [grabbed] a good start and was able to get fourth. So, we’re trending upwards but obviously we want to be on the podium.”
We'll have more from Anderson later.
Colt Nichols, who like Anderson races under the Twisted Tea Suzuki presented by Progressive Insurance banner, was under the weather but turned in a 16th-place finish.
“It was a rough day, [I’m a] little under the weather and just had to figure it out and push through,” said Nichols. “It was just a struggle, I was a little off all day, the mental clarity wasn't quite there, but I survived and did as best as I could with what I had today. We’ve got a lot of work to do to try to get out of the gate; we need to snowball my day a little bit better, starting with qualifying, and just give myself a better chance. If we do that, we’ll be okay. The speed’s good, the bike is good, I just have to give myself a chance, so we'll try again next weekend."
“We led a lot of laps, Jason rode great, we had a holeshot, and I think we led nearly half of the main event,” stated Dustin Pipes, Principal of the Twisted Tea/H.E.P. Motorsports/Suzuki presented by Progressive Insurance team. “We ended up P-4 with Jason. It was great to see him out front and back riding his pace and being able to sprint a little bit. It was a really good bounce back for him. Ken Roczen had a little bit of a rough main. He tangled bars off the start and then had a fall on the second lap, so he came from dead last all the way back up to eighth. It was a great ride. His laps were great, just a tough finish. Colt Nichols, P-16, he rode good; he's a little bit sick this week. I think there are a lot of people battling bugs, and Colt was one of them. So, for us it was just about managing our expectations and kind of getting him through the round.”
