With the holiday season fast approaching, it’s almost time to sit back, relax, and in this case, ask some of our industry people a few interesting questions. Once again, we reached out to our readers to see if anyone had a few questions for Ryan Lockhart. 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: Hey Ryan, this is a two-part question. With Jess Pettis down training in Florida at the Baker’s Factory, how do you see him doing in the 250W Series? Also, with this type of training and the confidence he’s going to gain from it, how do you see him doing on the 450 in 2021?
RL: I see him doing well…. Not a hard question to answer. Just thinking about this gets me excited as we’ll have one of our own to cheer for this winter. What an opportunity and good on him for most likely spending a bunch of his own money ( I don’t know this for sure ) to make it happen. After watching a few videos of him and reading some interviews do I see him get some Top 5’s? I don’t know, but I don’t see him outside of the Top 10 that’s for sure.
The base that he’s building down there with this training is going to be incredible and it’s really going to help him with the transition to the 450. Now, he is a small guy, but he’s very smooth and smart on the bike. It’s really the complete opposite situation to when Dylan Wright moved up to the 450 last year. Once Dylan got on the 450 he became more smooth and calculated, Pettis is already like that. So it will be interesting to see him on the big bike come summer. Staying healthy and getting the full SX series under his belt will be huge for him as he heads into the 2021 MXTour Series. When I did the complete 2006 SX Series I came back to Canada and had the best Canadian outdoor series of my career. I expect the same for Pettis.
MXP: Since you helped Ryder McNabb this summer and were around the GDR Honda Team. Can you please share some insight on why you think Dylan Wright was so good this past summer?
I’m fortunate to have spent the last few summers with GDR and have seen Dylan go through the challenging process to get to the level he was during this past summer. Like honestly, 2019 is what lead to the success in 2020 as that is when he learned how to win. Sure he won moto’s in the past, but 2019 was different in the fact that he could win regardless of what cards he was dealt with. However, could he adapt to the 450 was the real question mark for a lot of people.
I showed up at Gopher Dunes the Thursday before the first national this year to get bikes ready for Ryder and Dylan was there as he wanted to do some last-minute testing. My first thought was buddy, you should be resting! I ended up taking a ride back to the track to watch Dylan ride and he was pounding 30 min moto’s, 24 hours before the toughest national of the year and he’s out there doing motos. That just showed me that his focus and determination were on another level compared to the competition in 2020. Dylan was determined to show everyone that he could win on a 450 and that is why he dominated this past summer.
MXP: Although the amateur side of our sport in Canada appears to be solid right now, the pro side of the sport seems to be shrinking. Do you see the pro teams and riders going back to box vans and small trailers? Where do you see things headed in the next 2-3 years?
The Pro side is shrinking and it’s sad to see. For me, I believe that it all starts at the local level and builds from there. The good news is that Regional racing is on the rise, which in theory should help grow our pro rider population. I do believe that semi-trucks are a bit much for Canada. The sport grew really quick back in 2000 and it seems that there hasn’t been any adjustment along the way with what level of support there is. The OEM’s and sponsors are funding the big trucks and salaries for the teams which is great, but we have lost all our dealer-level support that would put 2-3 riders on the track. We need to go back to the East /West 250 Series in my opinion. Let’s get the Pacific Yamaha’s, Clearbrook, Blackfoot, Machine Racing, Toys for Big Boys back involved with supporting these riders in a Regional 250 series with some OEM support. That is what I’d do to reset the pro side of the sport right now. In closing, these questions have been fun and I look forward to continuing to give my opinion on all things moto in 2021. Happy Holiday’s everyone!