He did it.
Ken Roczen is your 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross 450SX Champion with a great ride in SLC to fend off Hunter Lawrence until Lawrence cracked and went down (moments after he went off the track). It’s amazing really for all the reasons we’ve been talking about in the last month or so. Like:
- He’s old. Roczen becomes the first over 30-year-old to win a title in our sport.
- He shattered the most seasons in SX before winning your first 450SX title.
- He’s on a Suzuki, the last time they gave us a new bike was 8 years ago.
- He doesn’t ride for a factory team; first time a fully privately owned team has won a 450SX title since 2008.
For more reasons on why Roczen's title was awesome, read this write up by Weege: The Ways Ken Roczen’s Title Is Awesome.
I thought Hunter was going to do this to be honest, just because of what we saw in Denver and this week in SLC was also going to be at elevation, similar soil and yeah, I thought it slightly favored HL. Dustin Pipes also let me know he heard all this as well.
But also, I didn’t know that Kenny was going to come into the shop in Florida after Denver and remind his guys that they have a motor set-up that was too much HP for Kenny sitting there but at elevation, it might be just what he needed. They added some compression to their Denver motor set-up but this week, it was a whole new ball game.
Roczen fell in the heat and had eighth gate pick, he went out by the box which I also thought was risky, but it also gave him some room to move. Start by the #96 and it could be over with his skill/bike, right?
By the way, Roczen’s two “fake” starts were not good but on the PulpMX Show he told us he was never worried about that, his team owner Pipes reiterated that also. Kenny said he doesn’t really try at those, so our concerns were moot.
So, the gate drops and it was Lawrence with maybe a perfect start. He was clearly out front on the inside, I put my head down to Tweet “HL holeshot” and before I knew it, the German had come through in the clutch when he released his own clutch. Roczen came right in behind Lawrence, passed him in the second turn and took off.
On the PulpMX Show, Roczen said he knew that Lawrence would make an attack later in the race, so he was also conserving some energy out there. And to be honest, it really looked like that. The whoops and the sand were the only thing tricky for these guys, other than that they were marking each other out there. Like the Tour de France, the push was coming at the end, right?
Until Jorge Prado entered the chat that is. Prado caught up to the front runners and, to me, forced Lawrence to make the mistakes he did. Prado was really good in the whoops, Lawrence was having some issues there. Hunter lost the front end and went off the track, three turns later he overshot a triple, pushed the front and down he went.
The title was Roczen’s, we’ll never know who was going to win in the “Lawrence’s late push and Roczen’s saved up energy” battle in SLC. Roczen’s the champ and in my 30 years of going to the races, maybe the most improbable one.
The PMG Suzuki manager, Larry Brooks, who is fighting cancer, showed up and told me he’s never cried before at any of his SX titles but with all that’s been going on with him and his bond with Kenny, he said he let loose the waterworks.
Ken Roczen, 2026 450SX champion. I never thought I’d type that sentence out but I’m glad I did.
As far as Hunter Lawrence goes, that’s another title where he comes up just short. 450MX, SMX and now 450SX, his improvement has been steady, and he’s done more than enough to get one of these for himself but man, you just never know when you’re going to get all the stars aligning for you like they were this year. Gutted for him and the family for sure.
Few other thoughts here:
Hey man, Jorge Prado doesn’t care about this title. He wants to win the race or get on the podium. I saw nothing wrong with what Prado did and he rode great. About the only he did weird was when he circled back to congratulate Roczen on the track after the race and then didn’t seem to want to leave? IDK man.
You got to wonder what Eli Tomac really thinks (we’ll never know of course) about Roczen winning this title. He was much better than Kenny for about half the year, he was definitely vying to be the first over 30-year-old to win a title, his season went into the tank for whatever reason halfway through the series and then he crashed out/missed three of the last four races. Tough end to the season for the legend.
Garrett Marchbanks secured rookie of the year which I think is pretty good, he didn’t have really any competition for it but overall, in a big picture sense, he got better as the season went on and 14th overall isn’t really where he belongs.
Things I think I knew and things I didn’t think I knew…
I didn’t think that Joey Savatgy would be this good this year. On a privateer bike the #17 was really good, solidly in the top five a few times and man, I wish he hadn’t hurt his foot and then broke his wrist later on.
I didn’t think Cooper Webb would be this “bad” and that’s a relative term for the three-time 450SX champ. He got a win and he was third in the points, but I don’t know if I had seen him get caught late in races like this year, not be able to close late like this year. He was “fine” but that’s not his standard, right?
I did think Christian Craig would carry his FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) momentum into this season. He was happy to be on the Honda, he’s still got talent but this year was sort of “Ehhh” for him. I do know he expressed to me he wanted to make it through a season without getting hurt so maybe that played into his lack of pizazz on most Saturdays.
I did think Hunter Lawrence would be really good this year and so, yeah, nailed that one. [Editor's note: Yeah, I think Steve meant to say Jason Weigandt called Hunter being really good and Steve himself fought back big time but, sure man! -Mitch]
I didn’t think, nor did ANYONE, that Chase Sexton would be this so-so on the Kawasaki. Although he did win SLC for the fourth straight year and did get more wins than Webb (try to work that out people), there were only two times that my pick for the 450SX title (Ha!) showed his old speed. San Diego when he hit the gate and Anaheim 2 when he won. Other than that, it was a whole lot of IDK man.
I didn’t think Jorge Prado would be this good. WOW. Like, I was way off on that one. Rumors have it that he signed a new two-year deal with KTM recently as well. Where in the hell did the guy from Spain that grew up racing the MXGP’s get to be James Stewart-lite in the whoops?
I think RJ Hampshire and Aaron Plessinger would like a 2026 SX season do-over by the way.
I think that the AMA giving Caden Dudney the rookie of the year award because he had the most points as a rookie is typical AMA. They just looked at the points and said “Yup, that’s our guy!” when in fact, he got benched halfway through the year because of poor performance and the guy they did bring in made the podium. Just awarding this by the points is mind numbing.
250SX
The 250SX Showdown was also a great race. Cole Davies caught and passed Haiden Deegan to take the win. It was quite a rebound from the earlier showdowns this year where they met and Deegs caught and passed him rather easily. Obviously, Davies whoop speed was a massive factor (Davies was only .1 better than Deegan in the whoops) but Deegs was pretty good through there, most times. Davies was good every single time.
The shenanigans we saw out there was interesting, there was no way Deegan had that counter-pass on Davies and him going down was predictable. That was an emotional decision in my opinion from the Deegs as the opening wasn’t there. He’s dished that type of riding out to a lot of people over the years, so it was interesting to see his podium reaction to Davies, but Deegs gave the proper amount of credit to Cole for his riding which was nice to see.
Maybe Mitch Payton rolled under a ladder while also running over a black cat? His two riders crashed in the whoops basically together and it held up his third rider as well. And just like that, although Levi Kitchen rode well to get second, his Showdown was once again a poop sandwich.
Seriously though, Cameron McAdoo needs to stop crashing.
There were two Honda’s and one Husky in the 250SX main event. The rest consisted of 12 Yamaha’s and seven Kawasaki’s. Dunno if I’ve ever seen that mix before.
MX6 Kawasaki continued their late season push of good results with Henry Miller tenth and Derek Kelley sixth. Olly Stone has that team all putting in some good results lately.
Daxton Bennick not making the main was a surprise for sure. Him and his teammate Ryder DiFrancesco were both in the LCQ which had to suck for manager Nate Ramsey but in the main, Ryder rode great, he passed a bunch of riders to get fifth.
Thanks for reading OBS! We’re onto the outdoors which is one of the more highly anticipated 450 Pro Motocross seasons in a long time. Can’t wait! You can email me at matthes@racerxonline.com to chat about that or anything else.
