| June 18, 2016
After the first three rounds of the 2016 Lucas Oil AMA 450cc Pro Motocross Championship, most of the focus was on the battle between defending champion Ryan Dungey and former champion Ken Roczen. While Roczen was showing that he had it all together, Dungey was consistently somewhere right behind him and still hoping to find the speed he needed to get up there and challenge the RCH Suzuki racer.
However, during the 13 days between round three in Colorado and round four in Mt. Morris, Pennsylvania, Dungey surprisingly announced he was going to miss High Point and would be on the sidelines for the foreseeable future after discovering a fractured vertebra apparently suffered in an early-race crash during moto two in Colorado. Honda’s Trey Canard—fourth in the points standings prior to High Point—also dropped out of the race prior to High Point after suffering an injury in a practice crash back home in Oklahoma during the break. He suffered a back injury and his return is “week to week” according to the HRC Honda Team.
With Roczen already dominant even with Dungey and Canard in the field, things were expected to seem even easier for Roczen at round four. And it was.
Roczen got great starts in both moto—one holeshot just in front of Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac and one just behind Autotrader.com/JGR/Monster Energy Yamaha’s Justin Barcia—and led every single lap around the tricky High Point track on his way to yet another 1-1 score. He has now won seven of the eight motos run so far in 2016, and he was leading the only one he lost, at Glen Helen, when his forks lost all of their air and he was forced to ride around slowly and finish fourth.
Roczen’s new closest championship rival Tomac had a good start in the first moto and was pressuring Roczen when he lost the front end on his factory Kawasaki KX450F. He ended up sixth in the moto. In moto two, he started in the top five and then worked his way up to finish a solid second place, but still ended up fourth overall.
Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson was the fastest qualifier on the day, but mediocre starts and a crash in the first moto left him with a 3-3 score, still good enough for second overall on the day.
And Dungey’s teammate, Marvin Musquin, now the lone wolf in the Red Bull KTM team semi, had his best finish ever in the 450MX nationals both with his second place in moto number one and his 2-4 score landing him third overall on the day. Bisceglia finished 10th in the first moto but did not finish the second.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s James Stewart and Blake Baggett did not suit up for the race, as they are still nursing injuries, Stewart a dislocated shoulder and Baggett and broken collarbone. The team, however, still showed with fill-in rider Matt Bisceglia, who made his first appearance on the team at the previous race in Colorado.
With 1/3 of the series having now been completed, Roczen has a dominant points lead over Tomac of 41 points—193 to 152—while Dungey still sits third in points another 21 points behind Tomac.
The series now heads to Muddy Creek Raceway in Blountville, Tennessee, June 25.
–STEVE COX