Southwick National MX: Roczen ‘limited’ by test opportunities

Honda’s Ken Roczen says he needs some test time in order to get his CRF450 into a place where he can challenge for Lucas Oil Pro Motocross wins every weekend.

The German has ridden with basically the same setup for the past three race weekends and has been unable to do anything abut the pace of Dylan Ferrandis, who took his third straight win at Southwick.

“I was struggling with my bike all day today, I didn’t gel with the bike nor with the track. You know what you’re going to get coming to Southwick, I always expect that it will be kind of slick, but then you go on the track and I feel like it’s 10-times worse. I made some changes for the second moto and definitely wasn’t loving it,” said Roczen, speaking at the track.

“But in general, I’ve been limited with testing, just being down in Florida I haven’t really done anything, and we simply need to improve a little bit.
At some tracks, I can manage it and muscle my way through a little bit better, but I wasn’t good enough, I actually struggled today.

“Even though qualifying practice may have looked good, I was coming in like ‘dude I need to figure something out.’ Having said that, of course coming away with a second-place I was fine with it.”

“I just mainly want to get my bike better a little bit. Having said that you can’t really just take [Southwick] as what it is. This is kind of a one-off track when it comes to the soil, so I’m not stressing about it.

“Even the setup that I raced with, well it’s actually the same stuff as High Point and RedBud. So I’m going to try and figure something out but like I said being in Florida makes it obviously a little bit more difficult.

“The weather that we’ve had too, I actually had an option shock to try that never showed up due to weather, so I’ve just been limited. But at the same time, I’m not afraid of sticking to what I have and I can make it work.”