Roczen not a fan of the track in Salt Lake City
Ken Roczen, amongst others, wasn’t a big fan of the track but the German wasn’t afraid to give his opinion on how they could make it better!
Roczen, eight points behind championship leader Tomac after a third place on the night, said: “In general you think that if we are racing on the same dirt six times in a row, same with Anaheim 1,2 and 3 we used t have, it would just get worse, worse and worse – I don’t think it can get worse that this!
“The fact that we are starting or ace a little bit later in the day and at night, maybe keep some more moisture in it then turning the dirt around. They have to water it a lot. It can’t get much worse so I don’t really know what to expect, hopefully it will just go the other way and get better, who knows.
“The challenging side of things were the conditions were so tricky. The track in general was pretty basic and then having our bikes being slower, obviously was a little bit tougher to make some of the jumps. I just think the other half of the track for example where I almost crashed, everything basically after the finish line, the whoops were okay but the section right there with those rollers, I was wondering what they were doing. It’s nothing where you can make up time, you are not in the air, we were riding almost in the 30 second range. I have never ridden on a supercross track that fast, I feel like they could have done a couple of things better just to not have low 40 second lap time but hopefully they will do some changes here in the next few rounds and maybe it will get a little better.”
In contrast, race winner Tomac admitted it is similar to the track he practices on at home in Colorado:”It was dry and required some two wheel drifting like you were on a flat track bike but sometimes it was actually kind of cool. Our track at home, it gets dry and hard, so somewhat similar. This place has more rock in it, there was some marbles.
Second place finisher Webb opined: “It seemed like they didn’t prep it too much before the main event. It was quite a bit different than I think most races, they break down and you just go lower and lower and lower. with the altitude and the bikes being slow, you can’t go much lower and make the jumps. it was defnitly tricky and I feel like the rocks came out as well. it as a rough main event, but more just the lines having no traction, you are on that fine line. The slickest turn was the first turn and at the end we got down to the concrete, you hit that and I hit it one lap and you are just barely holding on.”
With an evening race planned for Wednesday night it will be interesting to see of the track retains more grip and if the track crew alter the track to make it slower and more technical now the riders have a race under their belt after the break!
Article: Jonathan McCready
Image: Feld Entertainment, Inc.
