Ken Roczen won his fourth race of the season in Cleveland, Ohio, last week after finishing second in the first two features of the Triple Crown at Huntington Bank Field and winning the finale.
On his way down the final straightaway, he pulled a wheelie and saluted the fans, creating the only moment of anxiety for team owner, Dustin Pipes. Well behind him on the track and scored one lap down, Hunter Lawrence had his second poor finish of 2026.
Cleveland Reset Expectations
Until the past few weeks, Roczen was rarely the primary focus of the 2026 SuperMotocross World Championship. Other than a victory in Glendale, Arizona, in Round 5, Roczen had been considered the third man in a two-man battle for the title until three rounds ago.
It was not as if he struggled; Roczen finished in the top five in all but two races. But Lawrence and Eli Tomac were almost perfect during that span of races, and Roczen slowly lost contact with the leaders.
Questions arose as to whether Roczen needed to modify his approach. Even after his disappointing Seattle effort, week in and week out, the answer has been an emphatic ‘no.’
“I don’t know if it’s frustrating or not, but we see things, and we’re like, maybe we can be a little bit better there and whatnot,” Pipes said following Roczen’s Cleveland victory. “And he’s like, ‘Nope, just keep it,’ and it’s working, so we’re not going to change it until he tells us.”
The saving grace for Lawrence in Cleveland was his Race 1 win, which minimized the damage associated with a 14th-place finish in Race 3. Lawrence finished sixth overall to Roczen’s victory, but that was enough to allow him to hang onto the red plate. It created a virtual tie at the top of the championship leaderboard between the Australian-born Lawrence and German-born Roczen.
One point separates Roczen and Lawrence going into Philadelphia. The gap was 31 points a mere four weeks ago, when the series left Birmingham, Alabama. Roczen finished second in that round to Lawrence. It was an all-too-familiar scenario.
At the time, no one counted Roczen out of the championship, but no one really thought of him as a favorite either. The following week, he cut the deficit to 14 points in Detroit, largely because of an 18th-place finish for Lawrence, which handed the red plate to Tomac for two races.
Roczen won the following week in St. Louis, and the gap was down to five.
Roczen scored his fourth consecutive podium and seventh straight top five in Nashville, but still lost points to that week’s winner, Lawrence.
Cleveland reset the board.
Failing to make the feature program because of a qualification crash [link], Tomac was practically eliminated from contention. It appeared would take advantage in Race 1 of the Triple Crown. Roczen finished second.
Lawrence had a poor start to Race 2 and lost touch with the leaders before finishing fifth. Roczen finished second again, which tied him in the Olympic-style scoring with Justin Cooper for the overall lead. Lawrence was two points behind in third.
And then, the unthinkable happened. Lawrence had his second poor finish of the season after crashing.
Believe It
“I almost couldn’t believe that he was there, and I was lapping him,” Roczen said after the race. “I mean, it can happen to any of us. We can have these Triple Crown bad races, especially in the mud, but honestly, I just had no idea. I was just racing to win and getting the overall, and I had no idea about the points either.”
Standing at the podium in the post-race media scrum, Roczen’s approach to the season was validated, less because of what happened to Lawrence than his scoring a fourth victory of the season, tying him with Lawrence and Tomac for the most.
Three rounds remain. Lawrence clings to his one-point lead over Roczen. Webb remains within one full race of the leader at -22 points, and Tomac is -31 points, which practically eliminates him from contention, presuming he is healthy enough to compete in the final three races.
“You’ve got four races to go, and you’re 10 points down, and people think it’s a lot,” Roczen said. “I don’t think it’s a lot, and this is just how quickly it can happen, and that’s why I’m staying in my lane, and that’s why I don’t detour on my mentality. I’m going to do the same thing here on out. It’s about winning, and if that is not reachable, you decide how to do the most damage control.
“You guys might try to get me to change my mentality, but I’m not.”
Overcoming a deficit
Roczen is -1 to Lawrence after Cleveland (Won)
-10 to Lawrence after Nashville (Finished Third)
-5 to Tomac and Lawrence after St. Louis (Won)
-14 to Tomac, 10 to Lawrence after Detroit (Won)
-31 to Lawrence, 22 to Tomac after Birmingham (Second)
