Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
We have now reached the middle of April and hopefully, your 2021 riding season is off to a solid start. We have also reached that time in the week when we sit down with Ryan Lockhart to ask him some more 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 been talking a lot about Supercross lately so let’s stay with that subject. It’s looking like Cooper Webb is going to win his second SX Championship in 2021. Do you see Ken Roczen making one more push this coming weekend in SLC, or is this 450SX Series all but done?
RL: I couldn’t believe my eyes when Ken basically let Cooper by last Saturday. Even after making a mistake and crashing in the whoops, that was still Roczen’s main event to win. I don’t know what the heck is going on with him? He looks scared to get near Cooper and clearly is content with not winning this title. He has money, fame, and now a family, so perhaps he’s content. I’m sure Honda isn’t. Roczen could win both main events in SLC but Cooper I don’t see Webb making any big mistakes. It’s not over, but I predict that Webb will win this 450SX title.
MXP: We all watched in horror as poor Cameron McAdoo ran into even more trouble at Atlanta 3. Looking back now do you think he just wasn’t himself after his massive crash at Atlanta 2 and that perhaps affected him on Saturday?
RL: Yes no question! His body is beaten up beyond belief and you can see that in his riding style. It’s amazing that after all those massive hits that he was still able to get back up and keep going. He’s like Rocky (laughs). I’m a big McAdoo fan but there has to come to a point when safety is more important and a rider shouldn’t be out on the track. A week off will help him and it wouldn’t surprise me for him to come out and win the East/West showdown.
MXP: After watching some old videos from the Canadian Nationals in the early 2000’s I’m still blown away at how competitive they were. There were so many fast riders from both sides of the border in both classes. You were right in there battling in the 250 class. How challenging were those years in Canadian motocross?
RL: It’s awesome to look back and see just how many big-name Americans and even International riders came to Canada in the early 2000s. I can remember in 2001 getting a Top 10 finish at Nanaimo and it was a big deal since I was the third Canadian. Then in 2005, I finished in the Top 5 and that was huge as the names around me were well known. At the same time though, with talking about the good times there were also tough times. Even though there were more teams and more jobs for riders, it was tough for Canadian’s to get those rides as the teams wanted one of the big names. I think after 2005 things began to balance out as the Canadian riders improved and we received some of the good rides with the top teams.
