HEP Ecstar Suzuki Ken Roczen talks about doing World Supercross, the joy it gave him last year, and how it helped get him out of a dark place and enjoy the sport again as he gets ready to defend his WSX title in 2023:
“I’ve had a really hard time in the motocross season over the last couple of years with my body and some of the health issues and I feel like at this point I have it under control pretty well.
“I had a great supercross season in the US. I really thought hard about I’d it’s worth it going to the outdoors beating my body into the ground again. Why not become a supercross specialist throughout the entire year and with the WSX starting to take off and having more and more rounds and races throughout the summer I can do, it’s kind of like the best of both worlds.
“I get to go to different countries and go to German and interact with fans that can’t spend all their money and fly to the US to watch. Competing in Germany on the world stage is insane.”
“I made a big change in my life last year, I left the team I was with for a long period of time. I just feel like the candle got burnt down and that had a huge effect on me the last couple of years. Once u started getting the ball rolling with WSX, it really opened my eyes to how much fun the sport can be, switching teams at that point was the best thing I could have done.”
“I really got motivated to chase my dream to become really good again and learn to love it again. I followed my gut and my heart, I never gave up even though I had some really dark times, and only me and some close friends know how miserable I was internally, and to turn it around and come out on the bright side has been really cool.”
