The rider soars across the finish line as fireworks boom across the stadium, overcome with emotion as his fellow competitors stop one-by-one to pay homage to the new champion, oldest in Supercross history.
Tears also flow in the paddock, where the rider’s family — his parents in from Germany among them — celebrate one of the greatest comebacks in the sport’s history, a champion for the ages and not just because of his age.
The father figure of a team manager, his first race back following cancer treatments, finds his way onto the track for a heartwarming embrace for the rider who took down a championship in the sport that nearly took his left arm.
Ken Roczen, 2026 Supercross champion.
“It’s one of the biggest, most complex stories our sport has ever seen. For it to finally all come together the way it did was a fairytale ending,” said Davey Coombs, president of MX Sports Pro Racing.
Flashback to Roczen’s prime
There’s Roczen winning the FIM Motocross World Championship Grand Prix at 15, youngest to ever do it. There he is at 17, youngest FIM Motocross World Champion.
Roczen continues his meteoric rise in the United States: a 250cc Supercross championship, two 450cc motocross titles, the first German-born rider to do it.
Calamity hits in Anaheim, California, in 2017. Losing control going over a jump, Roczen separates from his bike, ragdolls through the air before landing with a thud nearly 30 feet away. The hard-to-watch crash causes multiple injuries, the worst to his left arm, compound fractures of both forearm bones, the wrist dislocated.
Eight painful days later, at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado: compartment syndrome has set in, the swelling so bad it cuts off blood supply, the doctor more concerned about saving Roczen’s arm, not his racing career.
Roczen: “It was so up in the stars whether I was ever going to be able to race again that I didn’t really think about it. I kind of secluded myself from the sport.”
At home in Florida
Multiple surgeries follow, one using a donor bone to replace a radial head that essentially turned to dust during the crash.
Roczen uses the rare time off from racing to spend time with his wife and kids, his parents who flew in from Germany. He’s also excelling during rehab, regaining the strength and most of the 25 pounds he lost from the crash and hospital stays.
Roczen gets the itch to race again, so there he is in the Anaheim starting gate a year after his devastating crash. He’s stiff and cautious, yet finishes the race and keeps riding.
San Diego, 2018 Supercross season
Still working his way back into form six races into the season, Roczen finds himself jockeying for track position and crashes into Cooper Webb. He falls on Webb’s still-running motorcycle, his right hand wedging between the swing arm and spinning rear tire.
The bones in Roczen’s hand shatter, the ligaments tear. His left arm not fully healed from one devastating injury, he suffers another to the right.
Back home in Florida
A second catastrophic injury might have sent other riders racing toward retirement. Roczen charges ahead.
He returns to racing three months after the second injury, finishes third in the motocross championship. He wins races over the next few years, has high finishes, yet doesn’t see himself as a championship contender.
Roczen: “I feel like at one point, I almost wanted it too bad and nothing goes that direction, so I had to focus on other things than the championship.”
2026 Supercross season
Roczen is in a tight battle with Australian Hunter Lawrence, younger brother of six-time motocross/supercross champion Jett Lawrence.
But by the midpoint of the season, Roczen finds himself trailing Lawrence by 31 points. He’s also racing without Larry Brooks at his side.
Roczen’s team manager is home undergoing cancer treatments, yet they talk daily about race strategy and training.
Roczen: “He’s a little bit like a father figure, so it was a really tough pill to swallow once he got the diagnosis.”
Return to opening scene
Roczen soars over the last jump at the finish line, his fifth-place finish just enough to push him past Lawrence in seventh.
At 32, Roczen is the oldest champion in Supercross history, earning his first title 13 years after his first attempt — the longest run before a first Supercross championship.
He did it on a Suzuki, giving the one-time powerhouse manufacturer its first Supercross title since Ryan Dungey in 2010.
Pulling to a stop atop one of the numerous humps on the track, Roczen braces the arms that nearly ended his career against his handlebars and lowers his head, taking in the enormity of the moment.
The tears flow as he takes off his goggles. He soaks in the congratulations from his fellow riders — some of whom walked from their bikes to join him — and rides toward the paddock.
Brooks is there waiting for him. So is his family.
Engulfed by a throng of well-wishers and media members, Roczen breaks out into the type of smile that seems permanent.
Coombs: “You could say it’s like six seasons of ‘Peaky Blinders,’ one drama after another, one challenge after another, and Kenny persevered.”
Roczen’s Ride is the type of story screenwriters would scoff at.
Too cheesy. Unrealistic.
It’s all real and it was quite a ride.
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