MOTOCROSS
LUCAS OIL AMA PRO MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 3 / JUNE 4, 2016
LAKEWOOD, COLORADO / THUNDER VALLEY RACEWAY
P50
450MX
Even before the 2016 Lucas
Oil AMA Pro Motocross Cham-
pionships started, RCH Su-
zuki's Ken Roczen had figured
out something major with his
RM-Z450's chassis settings. It
turned out that he had switched
to stock triple clamps on the
front end of his Suzuki factory
machine, and it immediately
improved the bike for him. This
used to be a pretty rare occur-
rence that a top-flight factory
rider would like a stock part
better, but it's becoming more
common in recent years, and
the reason for that is the fine
balance between rigidity and
flexibility.
Racers used to emphasize
the need for more rigidity, so
as to make the handling of their
machine more precise. This is
part of what led to the creation
of upside-down forks, as one
example. But ever since the
Japanese Big Four started us-
ing aluminum frames on their
motocross machines, the battle
has been about trying to make
the bike just rigid enough, but
not so rigid that it hinders per-
formance or comfort. Comfort is
a big deal because a motorcy-
cle that's too rigid can wear out
a racer, even if he is in phenom-
enal physical shape. What good
is it if you can go half a second
faster for one lap, but after 15
minutes your lap times are actu-
ally a second slower?
Also, this is a big reason why
Red Bull KTM's Ryan Dungey
and Rockstar Energy Husqvar-
na's Jason Anderson have not
had many issues with setup in
the past couple of years—be-
cause their motorcycles still
run chromoly frames, which are
much less rigid than aluminum
frames.
A crash in the mud at the
final round of the 2016 Mon-
ster Energy/AMA Supercross
Series, while leading, is the
Roczen dominated
both motos and
extended his points
lead over Ryan
Dungey to 12.
