It was a positive performance inside San Diego’s Petco Park for Ryan Dungey as he claimed his second-consecutive runner-up 450SX finish in the 2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship.

After crossing the line 16 seconds behind series leader Ken Roczen at the opening round, the Red Bull KTM contender admits starting his day in San Diego as the fastest qualifier was a welcomed changed.

“We started out the day nice, which was good because I felt like last weekend that wasn’t the case,” said Dungey. “It was nice to have the fastest time going into the night show and just put all of our effort into the track.”

Leading the 450SX main event early before being relegated back to second by the Team Honda HRC rider, the defending champion remains positive after pushing the pace throughout the 20-minute race on a tough and technical circuit.

“In the main event Kenny and I were pushing the pace, I was out front first and then he got by but we had a fast pace all night,” he explained. “We all took the same line out there, you didn’t want to try anything different because the track was so rough. Lappers in the way made you venture off a little but I picked up on a few lines late in the race and was really happy with it.”

With improvements to the factory KTM and the gap between himself and Roczen bridged, the three-time champion plans to continue focusing on himself and using his experience to come out on top.

“The bike setup was great tonight and I had a lot of fun,” he added. “I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to coming into the weekend. I know I have to keep the focus on myself and use my experience to make it happen. We made a couple changes here and there but I was really happy in the end.”

Dungey now sits six points behind series leader Roczen with 15 rounds remaining on the 2017 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship schedule.