Ken Roczen's Shocking Crash | SEQUENCE 17

Progressive Insurance/Ecstar Suzuki's Ken Roczen had a Nashville evening that ended quite shockingly (pun not intended, but it's there) as his shock gave up its damping job mid-whoop section in the 450 main event. It became a straight pogo stick as when any shock dumps its oil and/or nitorgen charge, the shock loses all damping character and just rides on the spring, which sadly Roczen experienced as he was thrown from his Suzuki RM-Z450 in violent fashion. We're still awaiting an update on his overall condition and we hope it's positive news. Below we have a full sequence of the crash, but first off check out this tight shot of a c-clip "exiting the chat" from Roczen's Showa A-Kit shock. This incident will be engraved in our minds for quite some time to come and will be on the highlight reel on replay.

Kenny has come forward already and stated the overall shock was in use for around three hours and we don't think they mean from a rebuild but three hours on the components itself. There have been some test track incidents over the past couple years with shock body failures and similar shock failures for other teams, so we know that teams overall are more aware and have started replacing these components more regularly.

All images are courtesy of Octopi Media

Now for the full sequence...