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Monster Energy Supercross 450 Class Round 6 Observations

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The Final Supercross Round at Lucas Oil Stadium has concluded. Honda HRC’s Ken Roczen completed the Indianapolis Sweep, and a potentially major injury happened in the closing stages of the 450 Main Event. That and more in our breakdown of Round 6 of Monster Energy Supercross. 

94 Ken Roczen – Honda HRC (1st Place)

Roczen capped off the Indianapolis week with his third win in a row. He won all three races in Indianapolis. Roczen becomes the first rider since Eli Tomac in 2017 to win at least three consecutive Supercross Main Events in a row (Tomac won five in a row in that 2017 stretch). Roczen again capitalized on a holeshot to take the lead in Saturday’s main event and proceeded to hold it the entire night.

An incident early on in the race could have been disastrous. Justin Barcia ended up trying to make a block pass on Roczen coming out of a bowl turn, and Barcia ended up t boning Roczen. It looked as if Barcia did not expect Roczen to go as low in the corner as he did. At that point, Barcia was at the point of no return and wasn’t able to slow down in time. Luckily the incident didn’t severely cost either rider. Both ended up riding on without further incident. From there, Roczen managed a two-second gap for a majority of the night. He held off Cooper Webb in the closing laps to pull out the win.

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Roczen now sits 16 points ahead of Webb and 24 points ahead of Tomac. Roczen now has 18 career 450 Supercross wins, tying him with legend Kevin Windham for 12th all-time. Next on the list is one of the sports all-time greats in 1989 125cc SX Champion and former monster truck World Freestyle Champion, the legendary Damon Bradshaw. As the series shifts to Orlando these upcoming weeks, I am now prepared to say that this is now Roczen’s championship to lose. He looks arguably the best he has ever looked in his entire career. Roczen has given me no indication that he will slow down, yet anyway. 

25 Marvin Musquin – Red Bull KTM (3rd Place) 

Musquin’s night was more or less the exact opposite of how Tuesday night went down. He ended up having a disappointing heat race where he crashed in the whoops but was able to get his KTM back on the box in the main event. After back-to-back main events where he was caught up on starting incidents, Musquin got out of the gates clean and hung in the seventh position. He was battling with Adam Cianciarulo and Malcolm Stewart for most of the race. 

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To cap off the night, he was able to get by Eli Tomac and Justin Barcia due to them both wrecking and got back on the podium for the first time since the season opener. The finish is exactly what Musquin needed before Supercross left Indianapolis. He has had a lackluster span of races after finishing 3rd at Houston 1. He got back on the podium this week. While it was mainly because of some riders wrecking, the finish should boost his confidence. 

21 Jason Anderson – Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing (6th Place) 

Anderson didn’t have as good a night as his former training partner Marvin Musquin. Considering the fact Anderson is just days removed from dislocating his finger in a practice crash, a 6th place finish is a successful night. Even though I would say he is out of title contention at this point, it was a nice rebound night for him after a string of disappointing results in Houston. Anderson could very well be opening the door to gain some confidence and compete for wins. 

For whatever reason, I feel as if I do not see Anderson nearly at all on the NBCSN broadcasts to this point in the season. Since he was a spot out of the top five last night, I feel as if I should call that into question, but that is neither here nor there. Regardless this was, like Musquin, what he needed. The finish was even more impressive as he was riding with a dislocated finger. That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun if I’m being honest.

1 Eli Tomac – Monster Energy Kawasaki (7th place)  

Last night was looking to end up being a good night for the defending series champion. Tomac found himself in the thick of it from the jump. He hung around in the top five for pretty much the entire main event until it all unraveled in the final few minutes. Barcia went down in front of him, by no fault of his own, in the double-triple section and ended up landing on his bike. The incident turned what would have been a guaranteed podium into a 7th place finish. I could guess that his handlebars could have been hurt from the wreck, but that is just speculation on my end. Last night’s result could prove to be a major blow in Tomac’s championship hopes, but unfortunately, sometimes, things are out of your control. Musquin could tell you all about that this year.  

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As far as his outlook for the season looks after last night, he now sits 24 points back of Roczen and only three points shy of being a full race worth of points to Roczen. There is still more than enough time for him to fight his way back into title contention, but now he is probably going to need Roczen to stop doing the thing where he gets good starts every single week and make little to no mistakes along the way. But Tomac can rack up a few wins in a row just like Roczen has, as can Webb for what it’s worth, so I am interested to see how he rides in Orlando starting next weekend with his points situation in mind.

51 Justin Barcia – Troy Lee Designs Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing (19th Place)  

Things were looking so good for Barcia on Saturday night. He cruised to a heat race win early in the night program, then proceeded to get right up in the front in the main event, even almost taking the lead from Roczen via an aggressive block pass attempt in a bowl corner early on. Barcia was in second for the bulk of the main event before Webb got around him, but things only got worse for Barcia afterward.

Going into a double-triple section, Justin was cross-jumped into MotoConcepts Honda Rider Vince Friese after taking off on the double and went down hard, not before being run over unintentionally by Tomac. Barcia, unfortunately, appeared to be in a deal of pain, and the wreck would end his night. And would, by default end, up in 19th position.

With six races complete, here is how the top 10 in the points standings look.

94 Ken Roczen – 138 Points

2 Cooper Webb – 122 Points

1 Eli Tomac – 114 Points

9 Adam Cianciarulo – 105 Points

51 Justin Barcia – 96 Points

14 Dylan Ferrandis – 96 Points

27 Malcolm Stewart – 95 Points (great value in Mookie Fever stonks as of this moment)

25 Marvin Musquin – 94 Points

16 Zach Osborne – 87 Points

7 Aaron Plessinger – 82 Points


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Main Image Credit:

Embed from Getty Images

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