Although the warm, humid weather and rough track at Southwick was anything but easy, Team Honda HRC’s Ken Roczen struggled due to the absolutely brutal conditions of the previous week in Florida.
So challenging was that event that it apparently reignited the endurance issues that had plagued the German for much of the AMA Supercross series, but that he had largely put behind him for AMA Pro Motocross, in which he had posted a pair of overall victories prior to this, the sixth round. Roczen once again showed impressive speed in the early going of both motos at Southwick, setting quick lap times and making strong passes, only for his physical limitations to then thwart his progress and see him overtaken by several competitors. In the end, Roczen’s 12-10 scores held him to just ninth overall, but he and his team are determined to continue working for solutions in an effort to secure a strong second half of the outdoors season.
“I was coming into Southwick fairly excited, though struggling a little bit recovering from last weekend’s race,” said Roczen. “Still, I came in with full motivation and a new fork setting that unfortunately didn’t work out very well for me in the first moto. On top of that, I could’ve recovered a little better from the weekend before, but I knew that I went out there and gave my best. For sure it wasn’t what we were looking for, but we’re going to continue working hard on the bike and I’m going to continue working on myself to get back in top shape and get back to winning races. For now I have to take it as it is, but I’m going to keep my head up and hope for a much, much better result from RedBud. I’m going to do everything I can throughout the week to prepare myself and get back to the very top. Other than that, there’s not much to say about my result besides we’re not very happy with it and are looking to turn it around next weekend.”
Up next for Team Honda HRC is next week’s RedBud National in Buchannan, Michigan, which traditionally hosts its AMA Professional Motocross event on Independence Day Weekend.