RCH Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s Suzuki’s Ken Roczen is focused on finishing the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship how he started it–on top.
RCH Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John’s Suzuki Factory Racing’s Ken Roczen may be in the best-ever position to add another championship to his resume. The former FIM MX2 World Champion, former AMA regional supercross champion and 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Champion, the German-born Roczen is gelling with his team, happy with his motorcycle, injury-free and physically strong, and his 1-1 sweep of the 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship opener at Hangtown last weekend may only be a harbinger of the teutonic terror that could reign down on Roczen’s competition as the season wears on.
Time will tell, but if that happens, it may not be because Roczen knows he has the fastest bike–he’ll admit that he doesn’t think so–nor because he believes he has more talent than the competition in what is arguably the most competitive and challenging motocross series on the planet. Rather, it may be because Ken Roczen believes more in Ken Roczen than he has at any other time in his professional career. It’s a state of determination that is connected closely with his training program and what now seems to be complete synchronization with his Suzuki RM-Z450. The determination has always been there, but after a trying 2015 season Roczen has had to fight hard to get back to a level of comfort that he felt when he won the 2014 450cc outdoor title.
If the Hangtown opener proved anything, it is that Roczen is in a good place.
Did the season opener at Hangtown meet your expectations in terms of what you thought you could do with so much hype about how competitive the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship is?
Any racing is tough, and things can go wrong pretty quick, so it’s hard to say what I expected or not, because it was the first race. But I’m here to win races, and win only. It’s a long season, and there will be some places where you maybe have to take a step back and deal with a second place or whatever, but I am always going to go out there to win. The first race, it was kind of like I went in with an empty mind and was there to do my best. I ended up with a 1-1, so it couldn’t have gone any better.
That empty mindset is probably easier to do when you don’t come into the first race with an injury like you did in 2015. It would be hard to imagine not feeling screwed before you even get your title defense off to a start.
Exactly. Last year we were in a whole different place, but I am better this year, and my bike is too.
Last year, and for part of the 2016 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series, you were still working to get your Suzuki RM-Z450 to a point where you were completely comfortable with it, and it really seemed to come around over the last five supercross rounds. What can you tell us about that?
Well, the stock Suzuki bike is a great bike, and it is easy to ride, but when it comes to our factory stuff there are things that are ‘factory’ but they aren’t necessarily ‘better.’ I’m really satisfied with how the stock bikes are, so we made some changes where we took some factory parts off and swapped them for stock parts to try to figure out what we need, and we’ve got it figured out pretty good right now.
Yeah, absolutely. It was really just a minor change, but we went to the stock triple clamp. It was just a flex thing, and the stock triple clamp is more comfortable. Plus, in supercross our bike was pretty short, and the stock clamp has a 21.5mm offset that is longer and works best.
So power was never an issue then?
Um, it isn’t the fastest bike out there, but I don’t need the fastest bike. I want it to handle good, and we’ve got it handling a lot better than last year, so that is the biggest point for me.
What about your training program. Has that changed for 2016?
I have a different trainer now, Peter Park, and we pretty much have a perfect program. He listens to me very well, and he makes compromises as we need to make them, so I’ve got the best team in my corner. Anybody can do a lot of hard work, but when there is no education and no compromise, that doesn’t work for me.
Obviously, you are determined to get back to where you were in 2014, to regain the Lucas Oil 450cc Pro Motocross Championship. Would that mean more to you than other titles you’ve had?
Of course, I’d like to win a supercross title, but a title is a title, and I am getting paid to win. But money is not even the thing. I’m a winner, and I want to win. I’m not riding out there to be anything but number one, but every year it’s a challenge and it doesn’t always work out that way. But that doesn’t change my mindset. Obviously, we have a long way to go for this motocross season, but if we find ourselves in a championship position at the end that would be absolutely huge because we were in a pretty dark hole last year. But we’ve turned it around now, and I don’t see why we wouldn’t win.
Looking back to Hangtown, is there anything you would critique yourself on as far as your race management went?
I didn’t have the best lines actually, but once I started switching them up I started gapping those guys even more. I need to keep my eyes open more, to find better lines and conserve more momentum. But other that… I’m never the guy who is hanging it out, off the front, off the back. I am more of a precise person, so there’s always something in the tank. There are a lot of riders out there that are too aggressive, but that’s just not myself.
Do you feel that you’re in a better mental place to avoid making mistakes on the track? With another year under your belt comes more experience and maturity.
For sure. You learn every year. There are other riders that have a shit-ton of experience, but they still crash all the time. Outdoors are different than supercross. They are fast, and they are still gnarly, so it’s dangerous. Anything can happen at any time. I’m just training my body to be the best it can be, and that will help me avoid making those mistakes as much as I can.
Talk about round two at Glen Helen. You’ve had good races there before.
We’re just going from race to race; that’s the bottom line. The red [points leader’s] plate looks pretty good on my bike, and I really want to keep it. I’m just going to try to grab good starts and go 1-1, but the most important thing is to be consistent over the whole year and not crash. I’m going to give it everything I have to put my yellow bike on top again.
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