Ken Roczen thumbs down for Anaheim
By Sean Lawless on 25th Jan 18
Its safe to say that the Triple Crown format at Anaheim 2 didnt go down well with all the riders and among them was Team Honda HRCs 450 contender Ken Roczen.
While his team-mate Cole Seely raced to second overall, the German ended the night back in ninth and slipped two places to fourth in the championship standings.
Even before the racing he was openly unimpressed by the three-moto format with eight, 12 and 15-minute plus one lap durations.
Its just not long enough, he said. We train to be super-fit to do 20 [minutes] plus one and that really separates the riders. Having a stacked field and three races, for sure, everybodys going to send it.
Anaheim 2 also marked the one-year anniversary of his season-ending crash and this was obviously playing on his mind.
Tonight was very interesting, he said. Its 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 didnt feel like myself at all out there. I was riding bad and couldnt 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 wasnt the plan but the worst part was I had two more to go!
Even though I didnt feel good, it was great to just finish it and get this one off the checklist. It was big night and it couldve gone worse as we saw here last year. Were walking away from here super-healthy and looking forward to next weekends race.
Its a tough pill to swallow as a rider because I want to win or at least battle for the win. For sure wasnt there today though. I want to move on, forget about tonight and start looking forward to the next one.
Its worth noting that Roczens best finish of fourth came in the final and longest race of the night.
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