Up until Saturday night, Ken Roczen’s season in Monster Energy Supercross was going quite well. He won the first two events of the season, and went into the third race in Anaheim, California as the points leader ahead of the dominant defending champion Ryan Dungey. Then, this happened.
Roczen went flying off of his bike during the main event for the series’ top 450SX class on Saturday, crashing hard out of third place around the halfway point in the race. A medical crew came out to assist Roczen immediately after the crash, and an update on Roczen’s condition from the Supercross website said he went to a local hospital later.
The whole thing looks wildly painful, especially with how much air Roczen got after separating from his bike. A statement from Roczen’s Honda team said he sustained a compound fracture to his left forearm in the wreck, though no further details about his condition or plans for the season were given.
Dungey won the event in Anaheim, taking over the points lead before the series’ next event in Arizona.
Update, Jan. 23 at 10:10 a.m. ET: Roczen posted a gory update on Instagram with a picture of his injured arm, explaining that he’ll have a long recovery and thanking fans for the support:
Dislocated wrist, dislocated elbow and compounded radius. The first 30h absolutely sucked as none of the pain killers worked and it was really swollen. Gonna need few surgeries to get all this dialed. 🔴 I have gotten so many messages and was so pleased to read all of them. I didn’t message back as the circumstances right now are just a bit gnarly and it would probably take me a day to reply lol. Just know I saw them! Love all you! Gonna need a few days for further info.