Ken Roczen ran away with the opening moto in Indy and looked the class of the field, but disaster struck his night and championship aspirations in race two when he cased a jump and got landed on by the unlucky Aaron Plessinger!
Roczen got back to tenth and took third after a bad gate pick in the final moto for fifth overall on a night when it looked like he would at least be on the podium and probably on the top step.
Roczen, who is now 28 points behind Hunter Lawrence, said: “I came around the turn and passed Jorge. I jumped on the table-top but I cross-rutted and high-sided a lot worse than I thought clipping off and I couldn’t commit for the three. At the start we are all bunched up and, as soon as I checked up, I thought, ‘Oh no, this is not good.’
“What a waste. I am so bummed that happened and I feel so bad for AP, he has had a rough go this year and the last thing I want to do is have him hurt. I felt really bad, just a bad situation, bad timing. What a waste for me, this could have been a really good night, felt like I rode well, did everything right but that couple of seconds right there.
“I am pretty bummed, pretty pissed off but that is dirt bike racing. We are 28 down but I am definitely not going to give up. We still have a lot of racing to go.”
Aaron Plessinger didn’t race again after the crash but fortunately escaped serious injury saying: “My day was going alright in Indianapolis and I felt we made some steps forward throughout qualifying. I climbed up to eighth in the first race, which was good, given where I started – I felt I rode pretty well. And then in Race 2, I got a pretty good start inside the top-five before Kenny [Roczen] slid on one of the on-offs, then he went double while I tripled, which had me plough directly into his back tire on the next jump. It took me off the bike and now I have a pretty good bruise on my right arm where his tire hit me, but as bad as it was, I think I got pretty lucky to get away from that one with nothing broken. We didn’t do the third race, which was unfortunate, although now having a weekend off, we’ll keep up the work and keep grinding.”
