By James Lissimore

At this weekend's rounds of the Thor/Parts Canada National Arenacross series, held in Chilliwack British Columbia, the big surprise of the weekend (aside from Kyle Beaton coming back from injury to dominate Friday’s racing) was Ryan Lockhart announcing that he would forgo the last round of the series in Nanaimo to try his hand at a round of the Advanstar BooKoo Arenacross series in Denver, Colorado. We caught up with Ryan to get his thoughts on  the sudden decision.

Racer X Canada: First off, Congratulations on the win tonight. How do you think your weekend went as a whole?
Ryan Lockhart: You know, it was all right. I had some pretty good qualifiers and I was just trying to stay consistent. I ended up on the podium in all four mains so I couldn’t really ask for any more. I got a win and three thirds so I’m pretty happy. It’s a tough series and everyone is riding really well.

I guess the big news for the weekend was you announcing that you would be racing the BooKoo Arenacross series next weekend instead of the final Canadian round in Nanaimo, how did that come around?
Actually, I got a call on Thursday before I came out here. My mechanic from the nationals called me--he lives in Montana and he asked me if I was going down there and he kind of talked me into going. I really had no intention of going but everything kind of came together. I called Suzuki and asked them if it was alright and they were cool with it. It’s a pretty big risk for me to take but I’m looking forward to it. I think we’ve got the fastest arenacross guys up here right now: Darcy [Lange], Colton [Facciotti], [Kyle] Beaton, myself, Brady [Sheren] and everyone. I want to go down there and see what I’ve got, maybe I’m missing out on something or maybe I’ll get my butt kicked but I’m going to find out next weekend.

Do you have any ideas where you think you might finish next weekend?
I don’t want to be too cocky or go down with high expectations, I just want to go down and get a feel for it. I’ll be racing against some new guys, some Americans, and I definitely don’t want to go down there and put a target on my back. I’m looking forward to it, I’d be super happy with a top five but the main goal right now is making the mains and going from there.

It will be interesting to see. You raced Dennis Jonon two weeks ago here in Chilliwack and beat him fairly easily and for him to come and win his heat race last week against some pretty fast guys like Josh Demuth, that’s got to be a pretty big confidence booster for you.
Definitely, for sure. I actually met Dennis when he came up here and he’s a really cool kid. It’s too bad he had some run ins with some people up here but that’s racing I guess. It’s a confidence builder for sure to know that he did that well there. But then again, who’s to say he was on his A game when he raced here. I know that he’s a really good rider but I’m not going off that by any means. Everyone is saying, “Oh Jonon did this, and Jonon did that” but you know, everyone has bad weekends. I’m not going to go down there with too high of expectations so I’ll just try to do my best.

I guess we won't see you race in Canada again until the World Supercross rounds in Toronto and Vancouver?
Yeah, I’ll be back in Toronto … unless I do well next weekend. I’m sure I’ll be in Toronto, come back to Vancouver  and see what happens from there. I’d really like something to turn out of this arenacross deal. I really prefer indoors, I’m prepared, I’m ready to go and I'm in shape.

And your plans are still to race the West Coast AMA Supercross Lites series too?
Yeah, I plan on going down there with Brady and Rick [Sheren] and the whole SixSixOne Funmover but it will be costing me a lot of money out of my own pocket that I don’t really have right now. We’re going to try to pursue this arenacross thing first and see what happens. If that doesn’t work out, I’m sure I’ll be down in the U.S. for the rest of the winter.

Okay Ryan. Anyone you want to thank for helping you out with your whole arenacross endeavor?
Yeah, I’d like to thank my mechanic Ben McDowell who hooked me up and kind of talked me into going and all my friends for basically sticking behind me and saying, “Let’s go Newf. You have to go down there.” I’d also like to thank Suzuki, M2R Helmets, Ogio, Pro Circuit and Pro Action suspension. Without all those guys, I wouldn’t be able to go down there. Now, hopefully it works out!

Good luck next weekend, Ryan
Thanks, James.