Cycle News

SUPERCROSS MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES, AN FIM WORLD ROUND 14 / APRIL 16, 2016 ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI / THE DOME AT AMERICA'S CENTER P50 450SX HERE WE GO AGAIN Considering the large lead Dungey has in the 450SX Championship, it's pretty impressive that he's still putting up such a hard fight for race wins when he really doesn't have to. Maybe it's because he has so much respect for Roczen that he doesn't mind having a good, clean race with him. The two champions have both been in positions where they could have easily taken each other out on the track many times this season, but they having been showing restraint and holding back on the take-out moves. Per- haps if Dungey ever got out of his comfort zone while battling Roczen, he'd let him go and settle for second place and protect the championship, but that hasn't been the case lately. The two rid- ers have clearly shown a lot of respect for each other and hopefully that will last. In St. Louis, the two went at it again. Dungey, on the Red Bull KTM, railed the outside of the first turn to start the 20-lap main event, grabbing the lead while Roczen, on the RCH/Soaring Eagle/Jimmy John's Suzuki, settled in right be- hind him for the next few laps, studying his lines while planning his attack. Roczen at first seemed to take his time then started making pass attempts, but Dungey always answered back, protecting his lead and sometimes even building on it a bit in the pro- cess, but Roczen would always reel Dungey back in. Roczen managed to pass Dungey a couple of times, but again, Dungey fought back every time, retaking the point. The 13th lap proved to be unlucky for Roczen. He held it on a little too long going into a turn and lost the front end under heavy braking and went down. It was a small crash but big enough to give Dungey an eventual win hand second place over to Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's Ja- son Anderson, who was running a distant third. Roczen somehow managed to stay focused and passed Anderson on the last lap to salvage sec- ond place. Even though he got second, it was another disappointing finish for Roczen who, for the second week in a row, fell late in the race while dicing for the lead. As for Dungey, he was obviously happy with his third consecutive win, his eighth of the season and the 30th of his career. "It feels good to get another win tonight and to keep plugging away at the cham- pionship points," Dungey said. "Ken was riding really well and it was all about minimizing the mis- takes out there. We were really pushing for the third week in a row. I needed to eliminate the mistakes and put the hammer down. He came up on the

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