Ken Roczen recorded his 25th career win in Detroit. Roczen has been riding great this season and now sits 14 points back from Eli Tomac with 6 rounds to go. Kenny has led the most laps this season, however, the thought is that he tends to fade as the later rounds of the season approach.
Ken Roczen has disputed this claim, listen to his take here:
https://x.com/SupercrossLIVE/status/2038131975253323805?s=20
So is this statistically true? Roczen has faced a lot of injuries in his career, so I will compare seasons with and without injures. I’ll make sure to label everything properly.
First and foremost, I am only going to compare seasons and rounds when Roczen was a full time 450 rider. So his four races in the 450 class from 2011-2013 are being leaved out of this analysis.
Raw Data
Here is how Roczen’s average finish by round is from 2014 through 2026 Detroit:
Obviously the Round 17 data skews the trendline upward. Roczen has only raced round 17 six times in his 13 seasons in the 450 class.
But other than that, its pretty consistent and flat. And in round 17, he has a 20th and 22nd place really skewing his average here. These occurred in 2016 and 2023.
In 2016, it was a mud race where Roczen crashed while leading and the had bike issues which caused him to DNF. In 2023, his foot got caught in a rut and caused a knee that made him pull off and DNF.
Without these two instances, Roczen’s round 17 average would be right in line at a 6.00. This suggests that Roczen actually stays pretty consistent.
Full Seasons at all 17 Rounds
In Ken Roczen’s 13 years, only in 6 has he raced all 17 rounds. Here is the same chart as above but for those seasons:
As mentioned before, round 17 is skewed by the two races mentioned.
Again, these sample sizes are small, round 11 is skewed by a 20th in 2014. However, in his full seasons, it appears Roczen isn’t as strong from the round 10 through 14 stretch.
Removing Outliers
Ken Roczen has always been an incredibly strong rider since his full time 450 season in 2014. So I think its fair to say anytime he finishes 15th or worse it is due to crashing out, bike problems or something else. I don’t think Roczen will naturally just be 15th on pace alone, ever. So here is the same chart from 2014 to present, all rounds. However, 15th or worse is removed from this next data set.
He has finished 15th or worse 10 times in his 450SX career.
So this shows Roczen has been pretty consistent when we remove the outliers. The trendline ever so slightly goes up but not in any significant way.
This leads to the question, is it fair to remove these outliers? Cause when we get into hypotheticals it can go the other way as well. But I think this shows that firstly, Ken Roczen has actually been way more consistent than I realized. And second, it seems he is correct that he doesn’t really seem to fall off when it comes to riding.
Lets look at some other data pieces.
Qualifying
Qualifying data is by no means perfect, however, it can show us some insight into raw speed.
From 2014 through present, Ken Roczen has averaged 4.70 qualifying positions. In 169 rounds of data since 2014, Roczen has qualified outside the Top 10 just nine times.
Here is Roczen’s average qualifying position by round since 2014:
Once again, pretty consistent and actually trends downward, lets do the same but with the seasons he has competed in all 17 rounds:
Once again, pretty consistent from Kenny. And again it trends downward.
So far, it seems that Roczen actually is more consistent then we thought. So what causes us to think he falls off later in the season outside of injuries?
I think its the points lead or deficit that trends downwards for Roczen throughout his career…
Points Lead/Deficit Charts
Here are some charts showing Ken Roczen’s points gap to the points leader or points lead in his full 17 round seasons. Look at how several of these charts start to trend around rounds 9/10.
2014
Roczen’s rookie season. Through 8 rounds he was just 9 points back.
2016
2016, Ryan Dungey was just consistently taking points away, not much to show here.
2019
2019 once again shows how strong Roczen was the first half of the season despite not winning a race in 2019. After round 9, he lost points in all but one round.
2020
2020 was Roczen’s title battle with Eli Tomac. In the final seven Salt Lake City rounds, he lost points in all but one round. In fact, he ended up finishing 3rd on the season with Cooper Webb passing him towards the end.
2021
In 2021, Roczen battled Cooper Webb for the title. After round 6, he had a 16 point championship lead. Once again though in the second half of the year he consistently lost points.
2023
2023 was not a year that Roczen was ever really in the title fight. But once again, round 10 and after he consistently lost points.
Verdict and Final Thoughts
I further looked into Roczen’s starts, however, there isn’t anything there. Roczen’s holeshot position average stays consistent throughout each round (don’t have 2014 data for this though).
In the seasons, Roczen had raced all 17 rounds, his laps led trends slightly downward towards the end of the season.
After reviewing all this data, Roczen’s performances do not seem to fall off as badly as we probably thought. However, he has only finished 6 of his 12 full time seasons in the 450 class (not including 2026 in these 12 seasons). Its unfortunate that Roczen has had to deal with as many injuries as he has.
But in the seasons that Roczen has been a true title threat, he has consistently lost points towards the end of the season. I am including 2019, 2020 and 2021 in this. When looking at the final 8 rounds in each of those seasons, 24 rounds in total. Roczen has lost points towards the title in 21 of those rounds and has only gained points in 3 rounds:
2019 Final 8 Rounds: Lost points in 7 rounds, gained in 1 round.
2020 Final 8 Rounds: Lost points in 7 rounds, gained in 1 round.
2021 Final 8 Rounds: Lost points in 7 rounds, gained in 1 round.
I think its fair to say he isn’t as strong in the second half of seasons, however, the falloff we might have thought he typically has isn’t quite as bad.
Curious to know what others think!
Thanks for reading! Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram: @MXReference
