Motocross: Roczen Earns 450 Overall At High Point

The Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship entered High Point for the fourth round of the 2015 season. Here's how Ken Roczen ended up with the overall for the day. 

450 Moto 1

After qualifying first, Christophe Pourcel resumed where he left off in practice and got off to the early lead in 450 moto 1, but began battling with Justin Barcia and eventually lost the lead to Barcia on the second lap. However, the real threat soon began to come apparent in the form of Ryan Dungey, who riding very fast and aggressive; he had already blitzed passed Ken Roczen after starting outside the top-five. Dungey’s phenomenal riding allowed him to get past both Weston Peick and Christophe Pourcel to get into second by Lap 3, and eventually pass Justin Barcia for the lead in Lap 4. Justin Barcia tried to keep up with Dungey, but crashed a couple of laps later, allowing Pourcel to move into second. Roczen was right behind Pourcel, but struggled to get around Pourcel for the longest time. Roczen eventually found his way around Pourcel and into second shortly past the halfway mark, but at this point Dungey already had a very comfortable lead. Behind the top-three, Jason Anderson had just made a pass on Broc Tickle to get into fourth, and began catching the Roczen/Pourcel battle ahead of him. Anderson was able to catch all the way up to Pourcel, but remained behind him for the rest of the race. Dungey took the checkered flag, with Roczen, Pourcel, and Anderson all finishing within 10-seconds of each other. After his small crash earlier in the race, Justin Barcia was able to make a late pass on Broc Tickle to finish in fifth.

450 Moto 2

The last moto of the day once again got started with Pourcel in the lead, but a mistake from him allowed Roczen, Barcia, and Dungey to get past. Dungey was able to make quick work of Barcia, and by the end of Lap 2 was into second place trying to catch up to Roczen. Roczen’s lead was minimal, but he did a great job of maintaining it for the first half of the race, setting nearly identical lap times compared to Dungey behind him. Roczen and Dungey’s lap times were fast enough to open up a large lead over Jason Anderson, who had managed to pass both Pourcel and Barcia to get into third. With about 10-minutes to go in the moto, Dungey began to slowly start catching Roczen, and was able to shorten Roczen’s lead to less than a second. However, Roczen kept pushing, and eventually was able to reopen his lead with three laps to go due to some lapped riders holding up Dungey. After that, Dungey’s paced decreased slightly, and Roczen was able to take the checkered flag 10-seconds ahead of Dungey; this gave Roczen his first overall win of the season. Anderson rode strong to finish in third, which granted him his second consecutive overall podium finish.

 Here are the top-10 overall finishers in the 450 class at High Point:

And here are the updated championship point standings after five rounds of racing:

Despite losing the overall, Ryan Dungey tied in points with Ken Roczen for the day, and hence maintains his points lead in the championship. As the series approaches it's halfway point, Roczen desparately needs to pick it up and start getting some 1-1 race finishes if he wants to defend his title. The series now heads into a one weekend break before round 6 at Budds Creek in Mechanicsville, Maryland. For coverage of the Budds Creek round and more, follow @VAVELMotocross on Twitter. 

Scott Yargeau is the lead motocross writer of the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @ScottYargeau.