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Ken Roczen's 2026 Supercross Championship completed a comeback for the ages
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah: Ken Roczen sat in the back of a room in the bowels of Rice-Eccles Stadium Saturday night after finishing fifth in Round 17 of the Monster Energy Supercross Championship and stared adoringly at the placard he had just been awarded. Imprinted on it were the number 1 and the words "AMA 2026 Supercross Champion."
Pennies worth of plastic represented a lifetime of both struggle and success, alternating with the heartbreaking and heartwarming moments that make up a professional racing career.
Roczen did not look up from the small, square plate in his hands as his team owner, Dustin Pipes, concluded his comments to the media. It was only after Pipes walked away from the podium Roczen became aware of his surroundings. He smiled broadly and made his way through the assembled media to take his place at the rostrum.
Thirty minutes earlier, he completed one of the greatest comebacks in dirt bike history.
"I have envisioned this moment all year to the point where I would, even at home, I would get emotional," Roczen said after the race. "I would hide out from the kids a couple of times throughout the day, every day, because I had to just to kind of do my practice. I had to envision it so deeply that I would get even emotional during the week because I felt all of it before it happened tonight. And of course you feel those things, I believed in it so hard.
"That doesn't mean that it's going to work out that way, but it made me believe so freaking hard."
The Journey
In 2017, Roczen won the two opening rounds of the Supercross season, beating Ryan Dungey to the finish line by 16 seconds in the first race of the season at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, and more than two seconds in the second race in San Diego. Everything was going to plan.
When the series returned to Anaheim for the third race of 2017, Roczen crashed nine laps from the end of the feature and shattered both arms.
He did not race again that year. Many questioned whether he would race again.
Roczen made six starts in 2018 before another crash kept him from completing that Supercross season.
Roczen scored a dozen Supercross victories between his 2017 crash and April 2024, when he suffered another terrifying accident that once again concluded his Supercross campaign. A blown front shock in Nashville, Tennessee, catapulted him over the handlebars. He had just passed Jett Lawrence and was in the process of chasing down Eli Tomac when the mechanical failure caused his bike to pitch wildly.
"Being in this championship hunt, I truly haven't thought about 2017 and all the injuries [since] because I'm so in the moment," Roczen said. "Of course it's there and it's amazing, but I think it's more other people that think about the whole story, because I have my focus so hard on the task at hand that there is nothing for me to think about. It's 10 years ago, so it didn't bother me. It wasn't in my head, nor do I care. It's so long ago."
"Of course now that everything is done, what an amazing story," Roczen continued. "I had to focus on the championship and everything else, and that was not one bit in my mind, nor did I want to use it as an excuse or anything like that."
A Comeback for the Books
the 2026 season began as a heated battle between three riders. Lawrence and Tomac dominated victory lane in the opening rounds and although Roczen scored seven top-fives in the first nine rounds, he had only one victory and was slowly losing contact with the championship leaders.
Roczen was 28 points behind Lawrence entering Round 9 in Birmingham, Alabama, the halfway point of the season. He finished second that weekend, but still lost three points to the winner, Lawrence. No one would say it, but with a 31-point deficit, Roczen was unlikely to be a factor in the title hunt.
But then Roczen won three of the next four rounds and closed to within one point of Lawrence during that dramatic run.
Roczen and Lawrence battled for podiums for the remainder of the season until a win for Lawrence in the penultimate round in Denver, Colorado, closed the gap to a single point.
All eyes were on the two championship contenders in this winner-take-all scenario. And before the main event, things did not look good for Roczen.
He struggled in the preliminaries in Salt Lake City. He had only the ninth fastest time in qualification, crashed in his heat race to finish fourth, and watched as seven riders took preferable gates.
"Ken is a racer first and foremost," Pipes said while Roczen gazed at his placard. "I mean, I think we've won a podium qualifying 14th or something like that. So for us, we just look at how he looks on the track, how the bike looks and stuff like that. So, qualifying ninth or whatever, it really doesn't matter. This guy's a racer; he's a gamer. When the main event comes, that's when he shows his best. So that's all we were worried about."
Roczen got a remarkable start. With a much better gate pick, Lawrence earned the holeshot. But he did not hold the advantage for long. Roczen passed him in the second turn.
Lawrence applied pressure on Roczen for the first half of the feature until he, in turn, was pressured by Jorge Prado.
And then, Lawrence crashed on Lap 11.
The field was willing to be patient and not put either Roczen or Lawrence in a compromised position so long as they were contending for the championship, but when Lawrence fell back to seventh, there was no reason to hold back.
Sexton passed Roczen for the lead with two laps remaining.
On the final lap, Justin Cooper, Prado, and Cooper Webb took advantage of an emotionally and physically drained Roczen and pushed him back to fifth.
"I fully believe I had the race win, but my side ached towards the end," Roczen said. "I tried to really keep my breathing super calm, but I think I did it too much almost to where I didn't take enough breath. This track was starting to get beat up and when you do that and you sit down, it kind of jackhammers you a little bit. So, I was starting to get a heavy side ache under my ride rib cage to the point where I couldn't inhale anymore and I had four laps to go and I'm like, oh crap. That's why I let everybody by because I was like, okay, Hunter's way back. I don't have enough to finish this off right now. The rest is really history."
Roczen had enough points, three to be exact, to secure the first Supercross championship of his career and complete one of the greatest comebacks in dirt bike racing.
