| June 4, 2016
With the exception of the front-fork issue that RCH Suzuki’s Ken Roczen suffered at Glen Helen, where his forks deflated and he dropped from first to fourth late in the moto, Roczen has been untouchable so far in the 2016 Lucas Oil AMA 450cc Pro Motocross Championship. It was more of the same in the thin air of Colorado at Thunder Valley MX, June 4.
In moto one, Roczen took the early lead right away from Rockstar Energy Husqvarna’s Jason Anderson and simply checked out. It took defending champ Ryan Dungey a couple of laps to get by Anderson for second, and by the time the Red Bull KTM rider made it into second, Roczen was gone.
Anderson eventually dropped out of the moto with altitude sickness and caught an early flight home in order to begin his physical recovery.
Roczen cruised in with the moto-one win over six seconds in front of Dungey, while Honda’s Trey Canard finished a strong third just in front of a Monster Energy Kawasaki duo of Josh Grant and Eli Tomac, and then Canard’s teammate Cole Seely in sixth.
In moto two, it finally looked like Dungey was going to have something for Roczen, as Canard grabbed the holeshot and Dungey was hot on his heels, while Roczen was passing his way from a start at the tail end of the top 10. But in an uncharacteristic move for Dungey, he cross-rutted and went down all on his own on the opening lap and got up outside the top 20. Also midpack was local hero Tomac on lap one.
As Canard led, his teammate Seely went to work on him and passed him for the lead on the third lap, but it was at just about that time that Roczen had caught the Honda duo, and he went by them both in short order to take over the lead and once again run away with a moto victory.
But it was Tomac and Dungey who were on the move. Every time Dungey got behind Tomac, Tomac would pass someone else as the two moved forward through the field. At the halfway point, Tomac had remarkably caught Seely in second place, then passed Seely a lap later. It took Dungey quite a few laps longer to get up to Seely, but he found his way by Canard for fourth on lap 12 of 16. In the final laps, he made up ground on Seely, but couldn’t make a pass stick and was forced to settle for fourth place. Dungey’s teammate Marvin Musquin passed Canard as well with a few laps to go to snare fifth place in the moto while Canard was forced to settle for sixth.
With his 1-1 performance, Roczen extended his points lead to 12 points over Dungey as the series heads into a weekend off. Dungey still managed second overall with a 2-4, and Tomac ended up third with his 5-2 score.
The championship resumes at High Point Raceway in Mt. Morris, Pennsylvania, on June 18th.
– STEVE COX