Ken Roczen (94) delivered a third-place result in the second qualifying session and in the day’s overall qualifying standings. Roczen went into the racing optimistic to close in on his target of the 2026 Supercross championship. After a mid-pack start in his heat, Roczen moved quickly into fourth; he set the fastest times through track Sectors 6 (the whoops) and 9 in the process. A small mistake in the sand section put Roczen on the ground, but he rebounded for a fourth-place heat race result. In the main event, Roczen was pinched off down the start straight; he dove hard to the inside and emerged at the holeshot stripe in second place. With less than a minute off the race clock, Roczen sailed into the lead and defended for twelve laps while setting the fastest times through Sectors 1, 4, and 7. A minor slide-out before the triple on lap 13 resulted in Roczen needing to roll the jump and give up the lead, then a fall on lap 14 put Roczen back to fourth. The track deteriorated, yet Roczen finessed his way forward. Incredibly, Roczen set the race’s fastest time through the whoops (Sector 6) on lap 20 of the 24-lap race. When the checkered flag flew, Roczen claimed third place and his ninth podium of the season.
“It was a pretty tough day, [and] a super-early day. We knew with the warmer weather that the track was going to be extremely dry,” said Roczen. “After a tough heat race, I ended up fourth. We went into the main event still having high hopes though, and we led there for quite a few laps until [another rider] got by me. I was planning on bringing it home in second place; we had a little bit of a gap to third. [Then] I just made a mistake and lost it and tipped it over. After I got back up, luckily I was able to get it going quickly and ended up passing [the early race leader] for third and brought it home on the podium… Of course, I would have liked to have gotten those couple of [additional] points [from] being in second, but we will take what we got right now.”
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