Ryan Villopoto San Diego Post-Race Interview

(These quotes were taken from last week's webcast on Supercrossonline.com)

Jason Weigandt:  Ryan Villopoto, welcome. 

Thanks for coming up here on the show.  Have you been celebrating the whole time?  Has it been forty-five minutes of non-stop partying down there?

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, it’s been good.  I’m just glad to get it over before the break and then going to hometown this time of year. It’s pretty much a guarantee that it’s gonna rain for Seattle. 

Jason Weigandt:  How much easier does it make the next ten weeks for you?  You had a big points lead but it still wasn’t wrapped up, I mean, it would have to affect everything you did.  You could not afford to take a risk or get hurt at all.

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, I’m going to go home for a week and just hang out. Then I’m gonna start doing outdoor testing and just ride a little bit of Supercross right before Seattle and then Vegas.  But, I’m pretty much gonna concentrate on outdoors until two weeks before the upcoming race in Seattle.

Jim Holley:  Hey, walk us through the start that you had.  I mean, it looked like you had that holeshot going in and then you saw a couple guys on the outside and you had to drive in a little deeper.  Teammate comes underneath of you inside and grabs that thousand dollars from Progressive Direct.

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, after what happened with Jason last weekend. I didn’t want to leave the outside open. So, I had the inside for the first turn and I got off great. So, Josh went wide and so I followed Josh out wide and, pushed Jason out.  I didn’t have any problems, with him but anything can happen. I don’t care with the racing stuff-anything goes unless it’s really bad and the AMA gets into it. 

Jim Holley:  I thought it was just good racing.

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, yeah, it was.

Jason Weigandt:  Now let’s talk about – You got a big prize.  Did I hear you got a new FJ Cruiser for this title?  Is that what I just heard?

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, I’m sponsored by Toyota of Escondido, so they gave me a truck to drive and then we kind of worked out a deal where if I won the championship they’d give me an FJ Cruiser. I had talked about that since the beginning of the year and last year a little bit.  They hooked me up a lot.  I got a truck and then in two months, I’ll get another truck. I’ll trade the other one in because they want to put me in the full-sized four-door.

Jason Weigandt:  There you go.

Ryan Villopoto:  So, now we have another vehicle and another car, so instead of just trucks and vans, now we have a car.

Jim Holley:  You talk about next year already.  I mean, you’re already looking forward to the Supercross next year, going into that East Coast.  How important is it for you to learn those tracks over there before you make that transition to the Supercross class?

Ryan Villopoto:  Yeah, it’s gonna be different riding over there. I know its a little softer dirt than over here but I’m good at learning tracks real quick. So it’ll be interesting to see how they are. 

Jason Weigandt:  Alright.  Ryan, congratulations on the title, man.  I know they said it was on its way, but it was hard work and you definitely earned it.  Good job.

Jim Holley:  Good job, bud.