Page 18 - GRRIT-11

theGRIT
With the 11th round over and complete, there is one thing for the fiery young German to feel happy
about and it has to be saving as many points as he could this past Saturday in Detroit.
After qualifying 10th out of practice, a mediocre result for last weekends winner, Kenny boosted out of the gate in Heat #1, proving pre-race times to be a fluke. Rounding the first two turns, it would have appeared that Roczen was going to have 6 laps to himself, yet the #41 of Trey Canard was right there to pounce. Coming out of the third turn, headed into nearly 100-yards of ruthless whoops, Trey had the fast line and took the front spot away from Roczen. Just like that it went from the Roczen show to the Redhead show as Canard couldn’t be touched, staying about a second ahead of Roczen for the remaining laps, with the two finishing 1st and 2nd and grabbing first-class seats for the main.
Fast-forward an hour or two and the bikes are getting warmed on the gate. With the 4th gate pick, Roczen looks hungry at the end of his narrow, middle-inside line. A few blinks, head shakes and twists of the throttle later, the electric board went sideways, fire-ignited and Roczen jumped, with his front wheel tweaked for balance as he bolted down the first 30 yards of the start. Unable to completely control the direction of the bike, the pack squeezed in, forcing Roczen to let off and lose his momentum. On the filthy Detroit circuit, the starts were critical all night with the main event teaching Roczen the hard way.
Still coming out on a mission, Ken crossed lap one in 12th place, eleven spots behind his red-plated rival, Dungey. Putting on a charge, Roczen was in 11th by lap 3 where he and Canard, the Heat 1 leaders, battled ferociously. Canard, then, got around Roczen, pushing him back to 12th on Lap 4. After getting by, Canard kept moving, while Roczen remained calm in 12th. Finally, getting his second-wind, Roczen got around the #34 Yamaha on lap 6, where over the next few laps things got real tight between Weston Peick, Mike Alessi and the #94 battling for the 9th spot.
Eventually, Alessi makes a bobble, Canard goes down tangling with Baggett and Roczen finds himself in that 9th spot, continuing to spar with Peick, who sits in 8th. After reaching 9th, Roczen stayed clean with 5th place Brayton and 7th place Baggett pulling off to fix flat tires about 5-6 laps from the finish. This allows Roczen to reach 7th and with another lap completed, lap 17, Roczen was around Peick for 6th where he frustratingly cruised to the finish. In hindsight, Detroit was straight-up mayhem and Roczen can tell you firsthand. As luck would have it, though, it was announced after the race that Dungey was docked two positions for jumping on a Red Cross flag, from 1st to 3rd, saving Roczen an extra 5-point deficit. Now, with a one week break before round twelve, the #94 has two weeks until the next war unravels and you can bet Roczen’s expecting a late season charge to confront the already almost unreachable #1 plate.
18 GRITMOTO • MARCH.21.16
words/BRENTECKERT