Roczen and Tomac ready for Las Vegas 250SX title decider
Red Bull KTM's Ken Roczen believes he will need to ride the race of his life at this weekend's Las Vegas season finale of the 2013 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, in order to walk away with the west region 250SX crown.
Ken Roczen’s tough night in Salt Lake City has tightened up the west region 250SX title considerably. Image: Simon Cudby.
Red Bull KTM’s Ken Roczen believes he will need to ride the race of his life at this weekend’s Las Vegas season finale of the 2013 Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, in order to walk away with the west region 250SX crown.
Roczen came into Salt Lake City’s penultimate round with a 20-point lead over GEICO Honda’s Eli Tomac before distaster struck for the former MX2 FIM Motocross World champion.
The German rider crashed in both his heat race and the last chance qualifier (LCQ), failing to qualify for the main event and leaving the door wide open for Tomac to steal the championship lead with 25 points up for grabs.
“It was a bad night, definitely not what I came here to do,” said Roczen. “I wanted to finish the season off strong, not with a DNF at the second-to-last race.”
Fortunately for Roczen, Tomac did not put together a great main event performance, finishing sixth and allowing Roczen to carry just a five-point lead into the final round.
“As much as I had bad luck tonight, I did get a little break with Tomac finishing sixth, so I still have the championship lead going into Las Vegas next weekend. I will need to ride the race of my life there.”
Tomac struggled throughout the night on the Salt Lake circuit, and through the whoops section in particular – but the defending champion has no excuses for his sub-par performance.
“My body is completely fine and I just couldn’t get through this day,” Tomac told Racer X. “I don’t know, that was it. It’s just crazy I can struggle that bad. I’m not that kind of rider. So, yeah… I can only say so much.”
Tomac considers himself lucky that Roczen was unable to qualify for the main event and believes that the championship is still very possible with such a small points margin between the two.
“I guess I kind of lucked out with Kenny [Roczen] not making the main because the way I was riding, it would’ve been over tonight anyways,” he added.
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda – I could’ve easily been in the lead, but five points is the difference between first and third, and it can easily look like that.”
In the scenario of Tomac winning the Las Vegas main event, Roczen must finish in the runner-up spot to clinch his first-ever 250SX title.
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