Ken Roczen may not have finished on the podium at the third round of Monster Energy Supercross, held at Angel Stadium on Saturday night, but he still hogged headlines. It was the anniversary of the season-ending crash that he encountered twelve months ago, hence why the spotlight was firmly on him. Did everything that was going on effect him at all? Well, his post-race quote in the HRC press release was rather intriguing.
"Tonight was very interesting," Ken Roczen said. "It's Anaheim 2, which is obviously where I crashed, and even though I tried not to think about it at all it lingered subconsciously in the back of my mind. I didn't feel like myself at all out there. I was riding bad and couldn't seem to do anything about it. I went into the first main, got a bad start, felt terrible on the track and basically went backwards. That definitely wasn't the plan, but the worst part was I had two more to go [laughs].
Ken Roczen admitted that it was hard not to think about what happened at Anaheim 2 last year (Honda Racing Corporation)
"Even though I didn't feel good, it was great to just finish it and get this one off the checklist," Roczen continued. "It was big night and, obviously, it could have gone worse, as we saw here last year. We are walking away from here super healthy and looking forward to next weekend's race. All in all, it is a tough pill to swallow as a rider because I want to win or at least battle for the win. It for sure was not there today though. I want to move on, forget about tonight and start looking forward to the next one."
Before signing off, Roczen revealed why he chose to wear the same gear that he crashed in last year. "It was my idea to wear the same gear from last year's crash," Roczen said. "It was all about making a statement and I think it did that. Not everyone was crazy about the idea, but I'm not superstitious and felt this was a cool way to officially put everything behind me and move forward."
After finishing ninth overall at round three, Ken Roczen has slipped to fourth in the series standings. Fourteen points is the gap between Roczen and the current series leader with fourteen rounds ago.
Interview: Honda Racing Corporation | Lead Image: Honda Racing Corporation