Roczen closing 450 points gap after St. Louis win
Ricky Carmichael and Leigh Diffey dissect the 450 races from Supercross Round 12 at St. Louis, where Ken Roczen put together a stunning ride to win a second straight and make the championship race even tighter.
Video Transcript
Round 12 of Monster Energy AMA Supercross here in St. Louis.
After last year, this venue got to see one of the SMX playoff rounds.
Well, Supercross returned in 2026 with Ken Roczen being the most recent winner in Detroit a week ago, and the fastest qualifier here in St. Louis.
If you didn't like what you saw in Detroit, you're not gonna like what you see tonight.
But what a start by Hunter Lawrence.
Man, his first lap averages are so spectacular, but Kenny right there as well.
Prado, no surprise, an incredible starter, and this track was brutal.
But man, I, I thought Hunter t- had a, had a good comeback from last year, but Prado, man, he was riding really, really well all day long.
There he goes taking the lead, but check this out.
Hunter Lawrence is gonna get back into the lead.
Kenny right there.
Rarely do you see Kenny make a move like this right here.
Comes up the inside, power move to take the lead, and puts Hunter back to third position.
That set the tone to say, "I'm here to win, and win again" and that was it.
Nobody, nobody got in front of Roczen after that.
How about this, though?
Justin Cooper on the move.
Mad kudos to Justin Cooper.
Just a fantastic ride.
He won his heat race, but man, this guy was on rails, and I reckon if he was able to get by Hunter Lawrence a bit quicker, and Prado, maybe he could've contested, just maybe, it's a big maybe, contested and gave Ken Roczen a little bit of a challenge, but riding exceptionally well.
You wanna talk about a really hard impact dip, I haven't seen one this hard in a long time.
Chase Sexton got I feel like he got confused of where he was at on the racetrack.
No one had done that all day long.
No one that I saw, or JT, we were talking about it during the race, and hopefully Chase will be okay.
Hate to see that.
He did not finish the race.
He pulled off, went up the tunnel, and back to the hauler.
Meanwhile, Justin Cooper, there was no stopping J Coop because Jorge Prado was the next one on his list.
Well, and Prado made him work for it, but finally, he stayed resilient.
Justin Cooper did, was able to make the pass into second.
It'd be sayonara.
Now we look at Eli Tomac, and just what is going on.
There's Cooper Webb, three-time Supercross champ, going back.
That put him into fifth position, I believe.
Sure did.
And then Hunter Lawrence was trying to work on catching Justin Cooper for second, but that really kind of stopped his momentum.
Well, it did, but I think, after listening to what Hunter had to say Oh, look, he tips over as they're A very difficult racetrack.
He's still nursing that, wrist, wrist injury from last week in Detroit.
Nevertheless, a good run, but this guy, the man on a mission.
You called it, Comeback Kenny.
Comeback Kenny for sure.
Back-to-back wins for the first time in five years for Suzuki's hero, Ken Roczen.
And in his own words, he said he couldn't believe it.
Couldn't believe that they did it again.
What a ride.
The momentum that they have going lead, I mean, this is Again, it's going to come down to the wire.
So you know that it was a Roczen, Cooper, Lawrence podium.
Well done, Jorge Prado.
That was a promising ride, and that fifth of Cooper Webb keeps him within a race win of the championship lead.
Notable.
Joey Savatgy, incredible ride.
He's still wounded.
Also, Christian Craig, great job.
And Marvin- And Garrett Marchbank's got his third top 10 in a row.
Yep.
Really nice stuff.
You've gotta feel for Chase Sexton.
We showed you that- Oh brutal impact, and that was race done right there and then.
So points, we couldn't ask for any more, folks.
It's incredible.
Tied at the top between Eli Tomac and Hunter Lawrence, the two riders who have enjoyed that red plate individually, and now together, and Roczen is just five back.
This is something special, I will tell you.
