With four wins in the last five races at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, it’s safe to presume Ken Roczen enjoys coming here and he has a chance to close the gap on Jett Lawrence in Round 10 of the 2024 Monster Energy Supercross season. With the Triple Crown format returning this week, Indy is a wild card round.
There are an equal number of reasons to believe Roczen could be successful this week as there are that Lawrence will continue to dominate the middle stages of the season, but that simply adds complexity to a season that was defined by parity in the opening rounds.
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Three of Roczen’s four wins came in 2021 when the series competed in three-race pods for most of that season, but he proved to still have an affinity for this venue last year by beating Justin Barcia to the line by less than a second.
Lawrence has recent momentum with back-to-back wins at Daytona and Birmingham. Equally important, Lawrence dethroned the king of Daytona by becoming the first rider to beat Eli Tomac in six years at that track.
But one of races that caused Lawrence difficulty earlier this year was Anaheim 2, which was the first of three Triple Crown formats of 2024. Lawrence crashed in two of the features and finished sixth overall. St. Louis will host the third Triple Crown race in Round 12.
Of course, Roczen is not the only rider with his sights set on Lawrence. Justin Barcia has struggled in 2024 with only one podium finish that came on a muddy track in San Diego. He finished second in at least one race during the past three seasons at Indy and that means he loves this track almost as much as Roczen.
How to Watch Supercross Round 10 in Indianapolis
Tomac cannot be ignored either. With seven wins in 15 Triple Crown races, Tomac is the winningest rider with this format according to Clinton Fowler at WeWentFast.com. When he misses, it’s not by much and Tomac has landed on the podium 64 percent of the time when three features are added together. Perhaps that should come as no surprise since he is the only rider to have raced in all 15 events. Experience counts.
Should Tomac finish third or better this week, he will tie Ricky Carmichael for second all-time with 171 Supercross and Motocross combined podiums in the 450 class. It would be Tomac’s 100th Supercross podium.
After this round, the 250 East and West riders will each have five events under their belt. The top three West riders are out of reach, however, given the shakeup in points at Detroit. Should the East leader Tom Vialle win this week, he would land with 99 points. On the other coast, Levi Kitchen leads with 106, Jordon Smith has 102 and RJ Hampshire has 101.
Vialle took the points lead last week with his second consecutive victory and according to Fowler, he’s done it with speed, setting six of the fastest laps in Daytona and two in Birmingham.
Previous Indianapolis Winners
450s
2023: Ken Roczen (Followed by Justin Barcia, Cooper Webb)
2022: Eli Tomac (Justin Barcia, Marvin Musquin)
2021, Race 3: Ken Roczen (Cooper Webb, Marvin Musquin)
2021, Race 2: Ken Roczen (Justin Barcia, Eli Tomac)
2021, Race 1: Ken Roczen (Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb)
250s
2023: Hunter Lawrence (Nate Thrasher, Jordon Smith)
2022: Jett Lawrence (Cameron McAdoo, RJ Hampshire)
2021, Race 3: Christian Craig (Jo Shimoda, Colt Nichols)
2021, Race 2: Colt Nichols (Christian Craig, Michael Mosiman)
2021, Race 1: Colt Nichols (Michael Mosiman, Jo Shimoda)
By The Numbers
Birmingham
Daytona
Arlington
Glendale
Detroit
Anaheim 2
San Diego
San Francisco
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