Ken Roczen - His Defence
Posted on November 20, 2023
Ken Roczen goes into next weekends final round of the World Supercross Championship, set for the city of Melbourne in Australia and with a big target on his back. While the defending WSX champion isn't holding the red plate, he will be the favourite to take out the title and add the 2023 version to his 2022 victory.
While Roczen won the opening round in England, he struggled with crashes and a foot injury in Abu Dhabi, but goes into Melbourne with high hopes of adding to his championship trophies.
Ken Roczen: The track wasn’t super technical (in Birmingham), but it was hard tonight. And my starts weren’t where they needed to be, so I gave myself some work and had to make some passes. With the races being so short you had to make a plan on the fly and pass when you could and it got a bit close. But I was strong in the whoops and tried to stay low over the jumps. I had to push hard tonight, and we’ve got some areas where we want to get better.
Abu Dhabi was a learning curve, It was different to normal supercross races and I had to start from the second row, but I slided and diced through the field, but then hurt my foot and fought with some pain. I made it through the events and I didn't even know where I finished. We had a break between the second and third and I took some pain killers and then I won the third main and I am so looking forward to going to Australia.
For supercross to grow as a sport around the world I think it’s really important that more riders focus solely on the discipline, which is why I’m concentrating on the World Supercross Championship and the AMA Supercross Championship in the coming years. I feel like my riding this year has been as good as ever, and I’m excited to see what I can do when focusing on one speciality.
I’m particularly proud of what we’ve achieved this year with the Progressive Insurance ECSTAR Suzuki Team. Dustin, Larry and the whole team have put in a huge effort to make me as comfortable as I have been to race at the front all season long. For us to continue our supercross momentum together and take the sport we love to fans around the world is an amazing opportunity that I’m very grateful for.
