ANAHEIM, CA, FEB. 2 – It was an all-orange night as the Red Bull KTM team cleaned up at the fifth round of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, on Saturday night. In front of a 41,294-strong crowd, KTM won both the 250 and 450 main events, with Ken Roczen nabbing his second win in a row in the 250 West class and Ryan Dungey winning his first of the year in the 450s.
For Dungey, it was a stressful night, qualifying for the main event through the LCQ, where he squeaked into the final qualifying spot on the very last lap. In his heat race, the air shock he’s been using off and on this season lost pressure moments before the gate dropped and had no choice but to return to the pits and swap it out with his more familiar spring shock.
With the last gate pick and starting on the far outside, Dungey was able to rail the outside of the first turn, avoid a multi-rider collision, which collected Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto and TwoTwo Motorsports/Honda’s Chad Reed, among others, and emerge in second place after the first couple of turns. He quickly got around early leader MotoConcepts Mike Alessi (who crashed shortly thereafter) and set the pace for the rest of the race.
Behind Dungey, points leader Davi Millsaps, on the Rockstar Energy Suzuki, and James Stewart, on the Yoshimura Suzuki, hooked up and battled hard for second place. Stewart eventually caught and passed Millsaps, which only seemed to fire up the red-plate holder.
Millsaps, likes he’s done a few times before this season, fought back, and he got back by Stewart, who later gave up third to Honda Muscle Milk’s Justin Barcia.
Dungey held on to take the win 2.5 seconds ahead of Millsaps, who finished less than a second ahead of Barcia, who DNF’ed the previous two rounds with crashes.
Stewart, who is still bothered by a torn ACL in his knee, finished a season high fourth, four seconds behind Barcia and five seconds ahead of Reed, who came from well back of the field.
Andrew Short, who is still riding a near-stock Honda, gave Reed a fight for quite a few laps before settling for sixth, 1.4 seconds ahead of Honda Muscle Milk’s Trey Canard, who had an off night, saying he just couldn’t get a flow going all day.
Villopoto ended up ninth after getting slowed up right off the start then tangling with Alessi a lap later. He ended up eighth, followed by RCH Suzuki’s Broc Tickle and JGRMX/Toyota Yamaha’s Justin Brayton, who rounded out the top 10 after grabbing the holeshot then falling just a few turns in.
Dungey is now the fourth different winner this season and moves into second place in the season standings. Millsaps still leads, now holding a 14-point lead over Dungey.
“We felt some emotion coming into tonight’s race after barely making it into the Main Event,” said Dungey. “The team was sweating it, but we pulled it off.
After winning the first three races in the 250 class, then crashing out of the last race in Oakland, Eli Tomac was hoping to get back on the winning track at Anaheim III, but a bad start prevented him from giving Roczen a challenge. He instead left that up to Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Martin Davalos.
Both Roczen and Davalos got around fast starter Joey Savatgy, on the JDR J-Star KTM, and ran 1-2 for the rest of the race. Davalos kept Roczen in his sights throughout the main, but Roczen was too much for him and everyone else and again took charge of this one.
Roczen finished out the race four seconds ahead of Davalos, while Tomac fought his way into third, taking the checkered flag 5.1 seconds behind Davalos.
Kyle Cunningham had a strong and steady ride to finish fourth, while Jason Anderson came from behind to finish fifth.
Travis Baker, Savatgy, Austin Politelli, Max Anstie and Zach Osborne rounded out the top 10 overall.
With the win, Roczen extended his points lead over Tomac to 20.
“I need to keep this up and take it to the next level,” said Roczen. “This has been a great two races for me, but the season is not over yet, so I need to keep the pressure on as we head to San Diego next week.”
RESULTS
450
1. Ryan Dungey (KTM)
2. Davi Millsaps (Suz)
3. Justin Barcia (Hon)
4. James Stewart (Suz)
5. Chad Reed (Hon)
6. Andrew Short (Hon)
7. Trey Canard (Hon)
8. Ryan Villopoto (Kaw)
9. Broc Tickle (Suz)
10. Justin Brayton (Yam)
250
1. Ken Roczen (KTM)
2. Martin Davalos (Kaw)
3. Eli Tomac (Hon)
4. Kyle Cunningham (Yam)
5. Jason Anderson (Suz)
6. Travis Baker (Yam)
7. Joey Savatgy (KTM)
8. Austin Politelli (Hon)
9. Max Anstie (Suz)
10. Zach Osborne (Hon)
