{"id":23293,"date":"2025-03-04T17:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T00:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ken-roczen-wins-his-first-race-of-supercross-season-in-daytona\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:33:08","slug":"ken-roczen-wins-his-first-race-of-supercross-season-in-daytona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ken-roczen-wins-his-first-race-of-supercross-season-in-daytona\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Roczen wins his first race of Supercross season in Daytona"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ken
Ken Roczen won Heat 1 and the main event at Supercross\u2019s Round 8 in Daytona, Florida, on Saturday. This was his first heat win of 2025 and his 23rd main event win. (Screen capture via NBC Motorsports on YouTube)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Supercross season has been marked by surprising upsets and devastating injuries, with one major upset taking place on Saturday. German racer Ken Roczen won his first 450SX race of the 2025 Supercross season during Round 8 in Daytona, winning by a generous margin over overall points leader Cooper Webb, who placed second.<\/p>\n

This marks Roczen\u2019s 23rd career main event win.<\/p>\n

To start the main event, Jason Anderson claimed the hole shot, his first hole shot of the season, followed by Aaron Plessinger and Webb.<\/p>\n

Plessinger passed Anderson to the roar of the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cowboy is back on his horse,\u201d commentators said as the two racers rode side by side as Plessinger passed for first.<\/p>\n

Roczen passed Webb for third place, setting his sights on Anderson. Sexton rode in fifth.<\/p>\n

In the sand section, Roczen rode on the outside to pass Anderson for second and continue to cut down Plessinger\u2019s lead. Around the same time, Webb passed Anderson.<\/p>\n

Roczen, \u201crelentless\u201d in his pursuit for the lead, charged around a turn to pass Plessinger and claim first place around the nine-minute mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis patience has been rewarded,\u201d commentators said.<\/p>\n

Soon, Webb passed Plessinger and attempted to put pressure on Roczen. Sexton moved into position behind Webb in a \u201cmethodical\u201d pass.<\/p>\n

As Webb continued to work down Roczen\u2019s lead, his bike was briefly caught in a rut, giving Roczen \u201cmore breathing room.\u201d By the final lap, Roczen had increased his lead to over five seconds ahead of second place Webb.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just something different about Kenny this year,\u201d commentators noted.<\/p>\n

Roczen won the main event, followed by Webb, Plessinger and Justin Cooper. Roczen is currently in third place for overall points behind Webb and Sexton.<\/p>\n

In heat one, Shane McElrath claimed the hole shot, with Roczen close behind in second and Cooper in third. McElrath did his best to hold on to his lead, but was passed by Roczen not long later. McElrath placed second and Justin Hill third.<\/p>\n

The second heat saw three crashes in the first lap, with Webb going down in the very beginning of the first lap while Sexton \u201cjust flew out\u201d to take the hole shot.<\/p>\n

Not long after Sexton\u2019s commanding start, he and Justin Barcia suffered a crash that forced Sexton off the track because of a damaged front brake and throttle. Sexton, who had clocked the fastest qualifying lap, would have to fight for his place in the main event during the last chance qualifier later on in the evening.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Malcolm Stewart moved to first, followed closely by Anderson and Grant Harlan in third. Webb, recovering from his crash, raced in 11th.<\/p>\n

Plessinger passed Harlan for third as Webb quickly moved to fourth place. Stewart placed first with \u201canother confident boost,\u201d followed by Anderson, Plessinger and Webb.<\/p>\n

In the last chance qualifier, Sexton won by a large margin, followed by Justin Starling in second, Fredrik Noren in third and Jerry Robin in fourth to round out the group heading to the main event.<\/p>\n

Though updates on Cortez\u2019s Eli Tomac have been few and far between since he suffered a broken leg, Tomac showed up briefly during the event\u2019s broadcast. In a broadcast package, Tomac shared that he \u201chopes to return \u2026 before season\u2019s end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Round 9 of the 2025 Supercross season is at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 8.<\/p>\n

\n

2025 450 Supercross Standings 1. Cooper WebbYamaha1682. Chase SextonKTM1583. Ken Roczen Suzuki1524. Jason AndersonKawasaki1255. Malcolm StewartHusqvarna1246. Justin CooperYamaha1227. Justin Barcia GasGas1118. Justin HillKTM1019. Aaron PlessingerKTM8810. Eli Tomac (injured)Yamaha80<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the first heat and main event in round riddled with crashes <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,162,28,60,29,346,447],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-eli-tomac","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-sports","tag-supercross"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78057,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23293\/revisions\/78057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23293"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}