| April 30, 2016
He had a shot at it a week earlier in Foxborough, Massachusetts, but Ryan Dungey didn’t get the championship sewn up. This week, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the Red Bull KTM defending supercross champ rode conservatively to clinch his second-consecutive 450SX title.
Ryan Dungey clinched the 2016 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. Photography by Rob Koy
RCH Suzuki’s Ken Roczen got out front right away in the 450cc main event and he just flat out split. Roczen took the win—his second in a row—by almost 20 seconds over Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Eli Tomac, who is hitting his stride just at the right time to get ready for outdoors. Honda’s Cole Seely started second and finished third after a battle between himself, Tomac and Dungey.
Dungey hung on for fourth, but clinched the title with one race remaining.
“In my whole career, I’ve been able to win titles, but the repetitive, back-to-back challenge was the tough part,” Dungey said. “Not that we put more pressure on ourselves. We went to town. We weren’t going to be afraid to fail, and it’s cool this many months later to think back to October when we started and here we are. It was tough. All of the competitors were there week-in and week-out, and that championship battle starts to wear on you, but we got it done.
“It’s a bummer [to have the podium streak come to an end], but the real goal this year was to back up the title [from last season],” he added. “It was a tough challenge and we had to bring it every single weekend. [My competitors] were tough and they brought it, but we kept fighting and here we are, back where we wanted to be. I couldn’t have done this without the support of my entire team and family. There’s definitely no I in team and this could have never happened without their commitment.”
As for Roczen, with his second win in a row, he clinched a definite runner-up spot in the championship.
“Congrats to Ryan on his championship,” Roczen said. “I’m just focused on outdoors now.
“We did exactly what we wanted to do [tonight],” Roczen added. “We got the holeshot and put in 20 solid laps. The track was in great condition. We did what we have to do and we’ll look ahead to try and get another one next weekend.”
–Steve Cox
