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-Says forks were getting hard during the moto
-They change something
-Ken is able to hang with Tomac the whole 2nd moto instead of getting dropped, puts 1m10s on 3rd
Seems to me like his "excuse" had some meat to it.
If Tomac keeps beating him and he keeps blaming the bike I'd say he'd definitely be making excuses, but as of right now if the guy who was pretty much perfect up until this point says something wasn't right, I think you gotta believe him.
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The areas that get the hard base exposed develop closely spaced stutter bumps like a hard pack track needing much quicker rebound settings.
The difference between Tomac's and Roczen's bikes was that Tomac's fork wasn't packing in the stutter bumps, and the inherently stable Kawasaki chassis was staying straight through the rough stuff...partly because Tomac was a beast and made that bike go where he wanted no matter what.
It looked to me that Roczens fork was packing and riding lower in the travel, steepening the head angle causing the bike to go into head shake when it hit the rough stuff entering turns. I actually thought the bike looked terrible at the start of the 2nd moto too. Maybe the pressure went up as temps rose and it smoothed out, but they didn't show enough of him during the race for me to notice.
So my worthless, groggy, 6am Sunday morning opinion is it was a setup issue compounded by the already quick Suzuki chassis.
I know that i notice a click here or there.. Sometimes to a point of it becoming unridable to me after 1 click faster or slower.
When you have to put (Jane Fonda) fork warmers on your forks to keep them consistent.. ridiculous. I'll take a spring please.
He didn't look comfortable. 2nd moto was a different story. 2 awesome motos-
In reality the suspension tech just checked the settings and made no changes. Moto is very mental by nature and simply suggesting that a change was made can put a rider at ease and make them confident about the setup of the bike.
I can see KR as a rider that can lose his confidence easily.
Pit Row
On Southwick in general, it doesn't really surprise me that Tomac won. We've seen time and time again that Tomac is incredibly fast on tracks like this where there are big, sweeping, bermed turns. He's won at Southwick before, we saw it at Kegums. But we've seen time and time again that Tomac can put in performances like that and then be a shadow of that the week after. Roczen won't be too worried about Southwick, he has 11 moto wins to Tomac's 2 and a healthy points lead. He's in great shape
Ken Roczen is known to use the Kayaba air fork in the outdoor season. But that does not change the fact that he does not like the revolutionary technology of the Japanese. Roczen is clear: "Currently I drive air fork and up to the mishap in Glen Helen, as the entire air was out, I am satisfied. Nevertheless, my opinion is that this is not the solution, everyone hates the fork. That is why so many switched back to the spring fork. But I can not, for whatever reason ."
Post a reply to: Oh yes he did - KR air forks