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said. "I think he came in [to the
2016 season] a bit fresher than
I was, but it was still a bit off for
him. Then he [tested for] out-
doors and he found a few things,
and at the end of the supercross
season this year, by round 15,
16, 17, I was like, 'Okay, the title
is the main focus.' He was going
really good, but I didn't have to
take any risks to keep up with
him. He may have been taking
risks I wasn't taking, or he may
not have had to, but I certainly
didn't need to take those risks
at that point. So, I wouldn't
call it 'burnout' but it was more
the mental side of things that
were definitely catching up to
me. That's part of trying to be a
champion in the sport, too. It's
not easy to win championships.
It's physically tough. Mentally,
it's very tough. Sometimes
championships are runaways
and it's not that mentally taxing,
but sometimes they are very tax-
ing. Sometimes it comes down
to a few points, and it can take
a lot out of you, and I think any
champion in our sport, or maybe
any sport, could tell you that. I'm
not trying to make up for why we
were losing. No. Ken was riding
really good, especially when
the outdoors came around. His
bike setup was on point and he
was riding really good. We were
behind the ball a little bit and had
to play some catch-up. I've been
there before. I was just doing the
best I could on the physical side,
and I was trusting the guys with
the bike setup where we were
trying to figure some things out.
It's just racing, and it just got cut
short. I made a mistake going
for the lead [in Colorado], and
unfortunately I got hurt."
Ever the champion, Dungey
believes he was going to start
defeating Roczen at some point.
"That's what I believe,"
Dungey said. "I'm not going to
say for sure that I could've or
would've done it, but I believe
that I could've and would've. I
knew we were behind the ball a
little bit, and we definitely caught
a break at Glen Helen when he
had his malfunction, and so we
were only down by 12 points
after I hurt myself in Colorado.
Things weren't that crazy. But
by after round three, I figured
things weren't that bad, and that
I was going to recover from the
soreness I had, and I figured that
I had two weeks to get back to
it. I believed in my people, my
program, my trainer, my team...
everything. Then I got the news
that I was injured worse than I
thought, and that was that. But I
did believe we could beat Ken,
even with how well things were
going at the time for him."
Stay tuned for part two of our
interview with Dungey where
talks about his involvement
with the St. Jude Children's
Hospital, his naked photoshoot
with ESPN Magazine and his
possible future with KTM in
next week's issue of Cycle
News. CN
