VOLUME 62 ISSUE 9 MARCH 4, 2025 P73
Roczen is on his game right
now. The Progressive/Ecstar
Suzuki rider has landed on the
podium in all but two races this
year and has been knocking on
the door for that elusive first
win of the season. Although
he'd never won at Daytona until
Saturday night, his pace in the
early heat race looked ready to
challenge for the front. In the
main event, Roczen started with
the lead pack and followed the
leaders for the first half of the
race before executing an excit
-
ing pass on Aaron Plessinger.
"I
was patient and just taking
it section by section," Roczen
said. "I had some good lines,
and I knew I had the speed to
stay up front. I just trusted and
believed that I could pull it off."
Roczen's long-time rival,
Cooper Webb, quickly found his
way around Plessinger and set
his sights on the Suzuki rider
up front. While the scenario of
Webb chasing down Roczen is
very familiar by now, this time
it was different. Roczen kept
the pace high and forced Webb
into making multiple mistakes
while giving chase. These er
-
rors allowed the Suzuki to break
away and take the
win by five
seconds at the line.
"This is definitely up there
on the single best main-event
wins," Roczen said. "I've been
wanting to do this for 10 years
and have never been able to
83 AUSTIN FORKNER
17TH 250SX EAST
Austin Forkner looked fast all day and
night on the factory Triumph, but small
crashes cost him in the end. "I quali-
fied seventh, which was the best that I
have qualified so far," he said. "I lined
up pretty far inside in the main and did
not come out too bad. It was just cha-
os in the first turn, and somehow my
front brake lever got bent up among
the chaos. I was trying to figure that
out and settle in a little bit, but then we
got another red flag. I went down after
that restart. It was super slick, but I
was trying to make a quick pass and
slid out. I then went down in the sand,
and my bars were buried—it took me
forever to get my bike up. That was
kind of the end of it for me."
10 CHANCE HYMAS
10TH 250SX EAST
Honda's Chance Hymas just missed
making the podium. "The track was
pretty rutty and super gnarly, but
honestly, I was having a good time on
the bike," Hymas said. "I got a good
start in the main, but overall, I need to
clean some stuff up; I was close to a
podium. With two laps to go, I made a
couple of mistakes and dropped back
to fourth."
MYOWNRACE
(Left) Roczen passed Aaron
Plessinger for the lead and never
relinquished it. He also held
off Cooper Webb in the closing
stages. (Bottom) Webb (2) finished
second and gained valuable points
on Chase Sexton.
