- press release -

San Diego, California – Ryan’s second attempt at Anaheim, did not go nearly as well as he had hoped. After the mud fest of San Francisco, the entire week leading up to A3 was spent working on rebuilding a wrecked bike. With only one day of practice before the race, Ryan’s results suffered and he wasn’t able to make the top 40 cut to the night program. The good news being he was only an hour away from his home base at Hamblin’s.

Not wanting a repeat performance of A3, and having a bike that was ready to ride, Ryan set out for a week of practice to be prepared for the San Diego round. Living any motocrosser’s dream, Newf went riding with such greats as Grant Langston, Sean Hamblin, Mike Alessi and Mike Brown to name but a few. Training with these guys will only make him better, and he is closing the gap in the ability department slowly cutting his lap times as they run sprints and full motos to simulate an actual supercross event.

Life in the pits got a little better for Ryan this week as well. Long time friend Rick Sheren made his funmover available for Ryan, now there was a secure location to keep his bike and to also relax. The kitchen in the motorhome let Ryan do something he had yet to experience in any of the previous rounds, a properly prepared meal.

The week of practice paid off for Springhill’s Lockhart. He was able to do all the jump combinations very quickly and worked at cutting his lap times. By the end of practice he was running sub 58 second laps and was 43rd fastest. This translated to a sixth place finish in his daytime qualifier and a transfer to the night program. With most of the fastest riders transferring out of the heat and semi races, it doesn’t leave much of a chance. In his semi, Ryan ended up in tenth position when only the top five transfer. He took the checkers 16 seconds back from the last qualifying position, an improvement of less than 3 seconds a lap would have had him in the main.

The LCQ saw Ryan with a great start, only to crash on the first lap. With huge talent such as Nick Wey in the LCQ, Ryan knew his chances for advancement were finished and used the remaining laps to gather more experience, and to not go a lap down to the leader.

During Saturday night’s event, there was a horrible crash by Texan James Marshall. He is a friend and great competitor, and Ryan along with everyone in the racing community would like to send out our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

There will not be as much practice this week, as the start of the east coast commences this week-end in St. Louis, Missouri. The eighteen hundred mile trek begins on Wednesday.

Ryan would like to take this time to thank his sponsors, OTSFF Suzuki, TWO WHEEL Motorsports, PRO-ACTION Suspension, SHOT MX gear, Pirelli tires, SPY optics, Gaerne boots, sixsixone, Factory Effex, Barnett clutches, works connection, PRO CIRCUIT, Sean Hamblin and his mechanic Joey Dobson

Feb 12, 2005
Media Contact:
Cracker Promotions
hewitso@nbnet.nb.ca