The 2026 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Champion Ken Roczen has been busy lately even though he’s not racing the AMA Pro Motocross Championship. He’s back home now and SMX Insiders Jason Weigandt and Jason Thomas caught up with Ken for an update. Has he made a final decision about defending his title? What’s his level of prep for the SMX Playoffs? And did his title…kickstart more enthusiasm from Suzuki in Japan? (You can watch the full interview with Roczen below!)

Editor's note: moments before we were about to post this interview, Steve Matthes posted that Roczen has a multi-year deal on the table to return to Dustin Pipes' Suzuki team, although nothing has been signed yet. 

Keep in mind that this interview was done before Matthes learned about and posted the news of a potential new, multi-year contract. Again, nothing has been signed and as you will read, Roczen is on the fence on whether he wants to retire OR come back and run the #1 plate in 450SX for the first time.

Nothing is finalized but Pipes Motorsports has a multi-year deal on the table for Roczen to come back. IMO it's expected the two sides will work this out & #94 will be back

Now, here is the interview Weigandt and Thomas did with Roczen, again, prior to knowing about a new contract being on the table.

Jason Weigandt: Oh, this is going to be awesome. None other than the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Champion Ken Roczen with us and normally, Ken, I start these interviews saying, “Hey thanks for the time,” because we know how busy you are, but in this case we don't. Just give an update on what you've been up to here in the last few months.
Ken Roczen: Well, obviously after Salt Lake, I took a couple of weeks to just kind of mess around and pretty much do nothing. But actually, from then on, I kept training because I told myself from the beginning on, I don't want to fall into that couple months of doing nothing and then you're kind of starting from scratch. So, I just kept myself up.

And then July came and I've really busy ever since. I went to England to the ABR festival for Suzuki and then followed it up right away with a Fox photo shoot and then I actually went to the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch and actually got to surf, thanks to Red Bull. Then the end of July I went to Japan and just got back. So, it feels good to be home and get in a routine and get my sleep schedule right!

Jason Thomas: We know we’ll see you back for the Playoffs. In 2023, you were really strong and pushed Jett Lawrence all the way down to the last lap for the title. The last two years have been okay, not terrible by any means, but not quite at that same level. When you take that time off, when you don't race all the Pro Motocross rounds, is it difficult or challenging to come back in and immediately jump in with any sort of momentum? And did you notice that the last couple years was like, hey, I can tell I haven't been racing a lot and it's hard to be right back on pace?
Roczen: Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a unique situation because in 2023 I was never hurt. I made it throughout the entire Supercross Championship [healthy], and obviously didn't race any outdoors but one, but I just wasn't hurt. So, I was able to kind of jump right back in. You always take that one race to get back into the intensity and stuff but that was ultimately why I was so close to the championship coming down to the last round. The last couple years, 2024 was my knee, and last year was my ankle. So, I just always came into SMX [Playoffs] just not being ready and fit enough and not enough riding time. So, that made it a lot more difficult. So, I'm kind of curious to see. I'm not racing any outdoors this year. I haven't had an injury, and I don’t want to take a risk just to get in a gate drop. I’m just sticking to my gameplan.

Jason Thomas: When do you start ramping it up? You're back from Japan. It sounds like your travel slowed down some. Is now when you start to get a little bit more serious?
Roczen: Yeah, I have to. Obviously, right now I’m riding motocross for practice purposes. We’ve been getting so much rain here in Florida, so supercross tracks are absolutely hammered. No one is riding supercross right now. So, I have to look at the schedule ahead and be like, "Hey, when do we start riding supercross?” That’s for all of us really that race SMX, right? But I’m not too worried about it as long as I'm on a dirt bike and I'm riding motocross right now and keeping myself fit, I feel like a day or two on supercross and I'll be right back into it. So, I'm expecting for the next week or two to be riding motocross with everybody else [at the practice track].

Thomas: Okay, final question from me. This is going to be the hardest one. When are we going to get news about 2027 and beyond? I know everybody out there speculating, wondering, and I don't expect an answer here, but is there a timeline that you're thinking about a go or no go for the future?
Roczen: Dude, I've been wrestling with that question for the last couple of months and I've kept pushing it off like, “I’ve still got time,” and “I don’t have anything to worry about it.” But man, it really it's a difficult one. like I feel like I should race. Not just thinking about myself and what I want, but also I think it'd be awesome for the fans. You know, Suzuki hasn't had a #1 in a long time and I haven't had a #1 plate in supercross. So, those are all things to think about, right? Larry [Brooks, Team Manager] hasn't been there the entire year. He should be all ready to go for this following year where I'm thinking, hey, I did this whole season pretty much without Larry. Like, it would be nice to have, I guess, one last hurrah, if you want to call it, and do that. So, I have to make my mind up here soon, but I've said it before many times: over the last couple years, I told my wife, “If the stars align and I can get that championship,” the feeling that it gave me just because I've worked on it for so long and it just it hasn't happened and it was highly unlikely, I was like, “If I get the championship, I'm done. Like, I’m done!” So now I do have the championship, and I have to say it is a bigger question for me just because there's a gigantic monkey off the back. Um it's not like I'm 24, 23, 25 anymore. I'm not saying I'm old by any means, right? But I am at an age where I'm like, man, I've been pro for 17 years. I've done a lot of racing and all of it.

So, man, it's a tough one because part of me obviously wants to race. But there's a big part of me as well that's like, man, I kind of like what I'm doing right now. We’ve had a few months and it’s almost like the longer I'm away from riding, the less it bothers me [not riding]. So, I am just kind of ramping it back up, practicing again, going to the races, I'm hoping that everything falls back into a routine and I'm like, “Oh, yeah, like this is my thing and I'm going to keep going.” Where as of right now, I've kind of been away from riding for a bit and it made me not crave it as much. I have been finding joy in a lot of other things than riding as well. So, it's a little bit of a waiting game, man. I it's a tough one. I feel like I need to make the decision and the reason I'm pushing it out is because I'm waiting for that day or time where I'm like, “No, I'm doing it.” You know what I mean? Like, “Let's just get it done,” and it [the feeling] just hasn't quite been there yet.

Weigandt: Well, speaking of restart, every time we see you hanging out with anyone from Suzuki at the top and then especially when we see you in Japan, people start getting very excited that maybe this title or your overall profile is going to relaunch the brand. People want to see more from Suzuki in the future. So, when you go over there and you talk to these people, does that even give you an indication of how excited Suzuki is and what this might mean to them?
Roczen: Absolutely. I mean, first off, I said, you know, when it came down to it, I'm finally going to Japan. I have never been to Japan! I have raced for all these factory Japanese teams for so many years and I've not made it to Japan. So, once I started with Honda like there was the plan but then I got hurt really bad in’ 17 and then ‘18 and just like the timing of things just had never really worked out. Right now, it was finally time. So, I think it was really important and really great to make that personal connection because I've literally talked to every single person there, all the engineers and it's kind of funny because. They had some meetings set up and it was kind of put on the down low in a sense. It's funny to think about right now like, hey, we're just going to talk to a couple of the younger engineers. I walk into a room of 30 engineers sitting there with a stage in the front like the whole nine yards! Oh, just couple of young engineers, right? [Laughs] So, it was really funny. We had a great time. Payton [Stevenson] actually came with me, my practice mechanic. We had a really good time. Got a great sense of the culture, which is one of my favorite things about traveling the world. That’s really important to us, with all these Japanese brands being in the sport. And then, you know, I met the president [of Suzuki] and all of the higherups. We had plenty of meetings and stuff. So, that was really cool. We have some things in the works. I got to test one day with all the guys there. So, yes, we have some things in the works. I was able to put some graphics on a bike [at the assembly plant], and I worked at the station where they put that on and check the bike, at that final stage where a couple of people check to make sure that everything is basically ready for it to be transported to dealerships and stuff. We can't have any bloopers, right? So, we're checking out the bikes and stuff. It was really cool.

Watch to the full interview below.