Roczen charges to podium in Birmingham

Ken Roczen charged from 16th across the holeshot stripe to second at the chequered flag in the AMA Supercross 450 main event in Birmingham, Alabama.

 

Roczen was strong all evening, qualifying well and winning his heat race. However, he was boxed in off the start of the main event, and found himself mired in the field.

He got his head down, and just six minutes later he was up to second place. From there he set the fastest lap of the race, half a second quicker than the race leader, and began to close in.

 

With time running out and the gap under two seconds, he continued to push for victory but a couple of small mistakes on a deteriorating track cost him a shot at the win. However, it was performance that demonstrated why he is still a title challenger.

He said afterwards, We had a really good day overall. In qualifying I was always up on the board in the top three or so. The track ended up being trickier than I originally thought; the rhythms were pretty basic, but we had a lot of different dirt, part of the track was really rutty and deep, and other parts were extremely dry and pebbly with no traction. So, it ended up making it quite difficult. My starts just weren't there tonight and it's hard to win when you're that far back.

 

"Luckily, I was really on one. I was pretty fast all through the main event and was able to click guys off. I was catching the rider ahead quite good but the track, with how rocky it was, you didn't even have to make a mistake, just land on a rock a little bit and it'd shoot you sideways. So, I missed a couple of rhythms a couple of times, and the gap went back out. But, ultimately, I was really happy with the second place after that start."