RCH Racing looks for second win at Chase Field
Fresh off an opening round win in Anaheim, RCH Soaring Eagle/Jimmy Johns/Suzuki Factory Racing is heading to Phoenix this weekend with their collective heads held high in an effort to kick-start the 2015 season by going two-for-two when the Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, visits Chase Field this Saturday.
Ken Roczen turned in a dominant performance in last weekend’s season opener at Angel Stadium of Anaheim (Calif.) by leading every lap and recording RCH’s first-ever 450 Supercross win. Broc Tickle, rider of RCH’s No. 20 Suzuki RM-Z450, finished eighth to complete his comeback from the devastating injury he suffered last March at the Toronto Supercross.
“It was good to grab the win in the opening round at Anaheim,” said Roczen who can become the first rider in Suzuki history to win the season’s first two events. “We just want to stay consistent and not get hyped up too early. We all need to just focus on doing our job. Going into Phoenix, I want to be aggressive again. It’s going to be a little bit of a harder track but I’m usually pretty good at that. In Germany, we didn’t have a watering system so I’m used to riding a lot of hard-packed tracks. I’m really looking forward to it. I think we can do some damage again. I want to be as aggressive as the track allows me to be.”
Last year, in his lone 450SX start at Chase Field, Roczen finished sixth. Tickle has a pair of 450 starts at the downtown Phoenix venue, where he finished 12th in 2013 and eighth last season.
By virtue of last week’s win, Roczen comes into Phoenix with a three-point advantage in the 450SX standings over last week’s runner-up, Jason Anderson. Tickle currently sits eighth in points, just three markers outside the top five.
While the 25-year-old Holly, Mich., rider was frustrated following his performance last weekend, Tickle knows that his eighth-place showing was an important step on the road back to racing for podium finishes on a weekly basis.
“I’m looking to build off Anaheim,” explained Tickle, the 2011 Supercross West Coast Lites Champion. “I was kind of frustrated after the race because I felt like I should have been better but, in the grand scheme of things, eighth is pretty good for being off the bike for so long. I just want to be better than I was at A1. That’s the goal. Keep maintaining, building and doing as much as we can to get closer to the top five.”
The 2015 Monster Energy AMA Supercross tour continues its west coast swing this weekend at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz. The second of 17 races on the 2015 Supercross schedule will be televised live on Fox Sports 1 Saturday, Jan. 10 beginning at 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
