Red Bull does a great job giving an inside look at the different approaches these riders take. Explore the curious contrast between the 2015 AMA Pro MX title contenders Ryan Dungey & Ken Roczen. Be sure to click on Episode 2 of MX Nation at the end of this write up to see the Red Bull video.
In Episode 2 of the 'MX Nation' series, the gate drops on the 2015 AMA Pro Motocross Championship, where again we see two polar opposites in a head-to-head battle for the 450 no. 1 plate. Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen battled tooth-and-nail for the championship in 2014, and their rivalry has only continued into 2015. Dungey and Roczen have brought a duality to the motocross series that we have not seen since the early Ricky Carmichael vs. James Stewart days - the workhorse against the natural.
Dungey was not a star as an amateur racer until he was 16, when he won his first major title at Loretta Lynn’s in the Schoolboy class. It was not until Roger DeCoster gave him an extremely unexpected shot at a professional factory ride that Dungey really started to shine. Roczen, on the other hand, was a prodigy on a minibike, a world-renowned name by the time he was 12. and is the youngest rider ever to win a FIM World MXGP race, at just 15 years old. But each have met now in the same arena.
Roczen bested Dungey in 2014, but 2015 has marked yet another chapter in Ryan Dungey’s saga of hard word paying off, and he has proven to be the rider to beat throughout the year.
The 2015 Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross series did not start out with either rider out front. Instead it was Honda’s Eli Tomac who put in five straight demoralizing (for his competitors) performances in the first five motos of the season, racing unchallenged to crushing victory each time. But a massive get-off for Tomac in the second moto at Thunder Valley spelled the end of his season, and blew the door open for the Dungey-Roczen battle to continue. Check out Episode 2 of MX Nation as we explore more into the dynamic and contrasting personalities of Ryan Dungey and Ken Roczen as they fight to yet again to reach the pinnacle of American motocross.