Let’s hear your Thoughts on Kenny & the RMZ.

X2, it went well. Roczen probably would’ve finished where he’s at on any bike. It just “looked” a little clunky. Probably just perception…

TYLER'S thoughts are the only ones that matter on this. 

No worries, this bike has never been developed with a rider of Kenny’s caliber.  As mentioned on the broadcast, the piece of the Kenny story no one talks about is Larry Brooks.  I guarantee Larry’s mind is working overtime.  I’m sure he will have 10 different things to throw at this bike on Monday morning. This bike will slowly improve and look smooth as butter 🧈!!!

Nobody at A1 had as little setup time as Kenny and did so well. It’s not like he slapped his 2016 settings in and he is dialed as his competitors that have had months if not years more time. 
I’m pretty impressed and hopeful he and Larry Brooks can make the changes he needs. 

Yellow Pig got 5th place. Ill allow it.

As a fellow RMZ rider, I think the bike looked awfully tall on the rear, and pretty rigid, but I think his whoop speed was fantastic, he was able to put the bike wherever he needed, and clearly showed that he has enough power as he battled for a holeshot. Hopefully some suspension tweaks and more time for him to acclimate to how the bike responds (casing/OJ) and he'll be in better shape

He finished 10 seconds off the winner was all. They raced 21 laps. So basically he was half a second a lap behind the leader. That’s not bad. 6th place was 15 seconds behind him and then it was even further back. The top 5 last night all rode really well considering how gnarly that track was. 

Did you guys see how rough it was after the start straight whoops? Choppppppy

I think his qualifying/practice times, along with his performance in the main pretty well dispel the rumors that the bike is somehow a major hindrance. 

It's almost like people try to directly correlate the 2023 450 Shootout videos to how riders are going to perform during a season. Roczen's bike probably has 100k minimum dumped into it; it's going to be competitive; it's just a matter of fitting it to him, and it sounds like he was relatively comfortable on it from the beginning. 

To me there were a couple of times where he looked a little awkward (relative to Tomac), but if you take that in the context of how rough that track was, it being the first race of the year, and how little time he has on the bike, I think it's really tough to draw a conclusion. 

I'm not a big RMZ fan, but I am optimistic that he's going to do well on the Suzuki this year. I think the bikes look great too. 

Yep Good points 

he made mistakes, his bike seemed really stiff and twitchy. i imagine theyll calm it down a bit

Kenny looked good. As for the RMZ they gotta 86 those gaudy gold rims. I don't get the appeal of them or the Blue rims on the Yamahas. 

He did solid for how much prep he would have had. Bottoming into the wet, slow transitions would have given him flashbacks of his big crash too I’d imagine 

Great ride, especially for someone that's not been on it very long, beat enough factory push-button bikes to impress me.

You all seem to forget he's only been on the bike a month or so. Give him a break, it'll take some time to gel. Of course he's not gonna look as good as he did on the bike he's ridden for the past 5 years.

That track was so rough and sketchy.

I will say, did anyone notice how low Kenny was putting that RMZ in the turns? I swear a couple times I thought he was/went down for a second but the zook was just turning and cutting like a knife in butter. Looked better than the Honda in that aspect.

I thought he did decent. Little time to prep for the season and the track was difficult.

But i do expect him more around 5th than ever before in his career. 

I’m surprised by this thread  

Considering the track was somewhat unusual due to the rain I’m going to wait for a normal dry tracks before making a judgement. 

His performance was was about as good as you can get with that setup and conditions. It's his setup and mental outlook (for obvious reasons) that hold him back. I think his set up is always too stiff and dead because he doesn't want the bike to eject him the way it did before. It's a lot to hang on to for a full 20 minute AMA main. I think the less testing he does the better. Which is why when he was on Firepower and the 2 stroke for RBSR he looked so good.

Seemed like he was clipping a lot of landings... like a lot.

Imagine how slow and heavy those Kawi’s must be, then.

That sounds logical...but, always be aware of where you're posting. We don't do "logic" on Vital.,

Ken and HEP both needed a race under their belt with each other to determine a direction to take with setup. Has HEP yet to have a rider on the roster that has pushed the bike to where Ken is taking it?

so he has similar results last year in most rounds and suddenly the honda is at fault?  seriously?

I don't know how all this works, but on an interview a couple of weeks after he signed with HEP, Roczen stated the team was going to fly over and work on the settings of the bike. Meaning California to Florida. With such little time wouldn't you think he would be working with the team daily? Perhaps that is normal, but it reminds me of an interview with Honda's previous team manager when he stated he didn't really know Roczen that well, at races he stayed in his motorhome and Canard worked on setup during the week.

As expected (Not bad imo) . I don't see him doing much better and he will have much worse races. The new motorcycles are refined compared to the suzuki. I think the Zook is too much demanding to be very fast and strong on a whole main event especially with Ken's ealt issues. Probably less forgiveness than others bikes. I wouldn't be surprised if he pull out of the series after Daytona or something and back on an other bike for outdoors. He doesn't look very happy to be there as well. Happy Roczen is smiling and he don't. 

I agree. The bike just looks bulky. Maybe put that thing on a diet. The mod motor is probably fine along with suspension. But they probably need to cut weight on that thing to make it even better for him.