It has been a bad last few rounds for Ken Roczen who had a 13 point lead going into Orlando and is now in a 12 point deficit to Cooper Webb in a matter of five rounds – that’s a 25 point swing! Fortunately for Roczen, there are still six rounds to go but the HRC Honda rider admitted in the post-race press conference that he wasn’t good enough at Arlington 2 but Ken is trying to stay positive despite a difficult and high pressure moment in the season.
Ken, we all know riders are emotional especially in the heat of the battle, looking back, do you regret the post race Daytona comments?
No, I said what I wanted to say. Of course fingers get pointed with how my races have been, but I knew no matter how I finished in these upcoming races, fingers would get pointed. I haven’t been on the podium lately, I have been trying some bike settings as well that haven’t really been working out that well. I went back to old faithful here in the main event today and that felt a lot better. I feel like I am done tinkering around with the bike too much, I’m just trying to always improve a little bit.
Ken, first night tonight without the red late, does the mentality change now going from the hunted to the hunter. What needs to change to turn this around to stop Cooper from getting so many points?
Obviously he’s on it right now. Realistically the only bad race was last weekend, points can turn around real quick. obviously he was winning and I was in like sixth or seventh or something like that but that was really my only bad race that I’ve had so far this year. We have still got six rounds to go as well and I just want to focus on myself. Of course it’s a nice little something to have on the bike but in the end is when it counts and I am keeping the dream alive, of course he is chipping away and winning a lot right now.
I just want to go out there and do what I love and see if I can get back closer at least so we can make it a good battle all the way to the end. I got a much better start tonight, obviously I wasn’t good enough tonight, but in general I have been having good starts besides last weekend. I think Daytona faked a little bit not being on the podium just by getting shuffled back, but I felt like I was strong and was riding decent at least and all the rounds before I was riding good. I’m just trying to keep my head up and keep chipping away, that’s all I can do on a weekly basis anyways. Luckily we have got some races to go and yeah, go back at it again on Saturday and try again.
Kenny I wonder if you can give some insight into where you are mentally, you get a lot of press nationally and internationally, I’m sure you are aware of that. I was wondering if you can give us some insight at this stage in the series of where you are mentally and if the focus is on bike settings at your level or if it’s just a mental test at this point for you to win this championship?
I honestly try to stay off of any kind of media stuff as much as I can just because I am trying to be in the moment and enjoy what I’m doing so I am honestly just trying to keep it pretty mellow. I knew coming into the season it was going to be a long season and there is always going to be ups and downs and the last few races haven’t been the greatest at least results wise, so I’m honestly still in the same mentality of going racing and trying to enjoy what I do to be honest. This is when I function the best, if you really look at it 12 points isn’t too much, you never want to get comfortable, like Cooper said, anything can happen.
Of course there were a couple of points taken away from me in the beginning of the season and if I could have those it would be even tighter. I just going to continue doing the same things and just put myself in good position with some starts and see if we can snag a couple of wins here or there and see where we are at at the end of the season. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, no championship comes easy so I am honestly just trying to be stable and be relaxed, enjoy what we are doing, that’s the fun part about competing.
I want to go back to Houston when you have the four points penalty and the issue with Dean Wilson costing you the win that being another three point swing. Do you feel that catching up with you or are you just trying to keep that behind you as much as possible?
It doesn’t matter at this point because it’s the past and it happened. But I feel like of course those are just valuable points. The whole Dean thing, that was a legit just a lapper (situation), and it didn’t work out in my favour. I still disagree with the AMA and them docking me four points that are of course valuable but what am I going to do about it now? The three Houston’s did me bad in that way a little bit but I didn’t want to focus on that and get so stuck on it and ruin a whole season to get hung up on all that. I have had the red plate for more rounds than honestly I’ve ever had in my life before so that’s pretty cool and I’m holding on to the positive. I am just continuing to chip away and look in the now and what’s ahead of me rather than focusing back there, it’s not going to do me any good.
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