Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
With Spring now upon us, it’s time for most of us to head to the track for some riding. It’s also time to sit down with Ryan Lockhart and ask him some questions about current topics in our sport. As you know, Ryan has been in this industry for over twenty years and during that time he’s been a rider, a mechanic, a riding coach, and most recently the Brand Manager over at Matrix Concepts Canada. Ryan knows a lot about a lot of things and he’s always a great guy to talk to. Here are this week’s 3 Q’s with Ryan Lockhart presented by Matrix Concepts Canada.
MXP: We’ve spoken about this before, but what do you think is going on with Ken Roczen? On Tuesday he finally got a good start and really went nowhere. Is it mental, does his new Honda not work well on hard-packed tracks, or has Cooper Webb just elevated his game?
RL: I believe it’s as simple as Ken is in a bit of a slump. He came out firing and looked to be unstoppable early in the series which he has done before. Once Webb started winning Ken’s confidence seemed to fade. I don’t think it has anything to do with the bike, I think it’s more Ken’s confidence that is rattled. There haven’t been many riders who are as mentally strong as Webb and that’s easy to see. Tuesday was Ken’s shot to go after him but he just didn’t seem to find that extra gear. Anything can happen but he has to be hitting the panic button. With saying all of this I have the utmost respect for Ken, coming back from these injuries is almost impossible for most and I would like to see him win this title. But it’s not looking good with how well Cooper is riding.
MXP: What are your thoughts on the 250SX West class. Four races, four different winners, pretty entertaining stuff.
It’s been awesome! For us fans, it doesn’t get much better. After Orlando 2 I don’t think many would argue that we all thought that Justin Cooper was going to dominate this. I love seeing the rookies getting into the mix which it’s been a while since we have seen that. The 250SX West class is going to come down to the wire especially with McAdoo getting docked points on Tuesday. Having said this, I think we’ll see our first repeat winner on Saturday night, but I have no idea who it’s going to be?
MXP: With certain riders making weekly Vlogs on YouTube, it got me thinking how entertaining it would’ve been if we made them back in our era. One rider that comes to mind as someone who was always good for a laugh was Mike Treadwell. Can you give us your favourite Mike Treadwell story?
Oh man, there are a lot of Tread stories from over the years. Mike took me under his wing in the early 2000s and was always a guy who I had a ton of respect for. I used to stay at his house and do some NESC races back in the day. He took me riding at John Dowds and Doug Henry’s house which as a kid was just unbelievable. I will always remember 2003 when Tread was the Team Manager for our KTM Team while he was still racing. Iain Hayden, Treadwell, and I were on the team and it was awesome. I’m sure it was stressful for Mike as he was still legit racing and also making sure Iain and I had the tools to do the best we could. The highlight of that year was getting my only national moto win in Quebec. Under Mike’s guidance, we had a great year and I give him a lot of credit for that.
