As the lone Australian in the West Coast Regional Lites class in the first few rounds of the AMA Supercross Championship, Ryan Marmont has risen to the occasion with a string of impressive performances.

The former Aussie Supercross and Motocross Champion transferred directly from his heat at Anaheim before claiming 14th in the main, then racing to a stellar third in his heat at Phoenix one weekend later.

Despite a crash derailing his final hopes and forcing him to settle for 17th on Saturday night, Marmont is enjoying his time in the U.S. with JDR/J-Star/KTM before returning home at the end of the month to focus on his first season in the Pro Open class with JDR’s Aussie operation.

MotoOnline.com.au gave Doggy a call on Monday morning (Sunday evening in America) to get the inside scoop on his progress after a lengthy stint overseas so far.

Doggy, nice job so far at Anaheim and Phoenix mate. How would you rate your performances to date over there?

It’s definitely exciting. I knew it was going to be difficult heading into Anaheim 1, but in saying that I didn’t really know where to place myself in the line-up.

When I first came over I went to Alessi’s place and got straight onto their program, which was kind of the best thing for me at the time to help me get up to speed – it was good riding with Mike and Jeff.

Going into A1 I just went in with an open mind, put no pressure on myself and did the best I could. I sat down with Nathan Ramsey, planned out the night and went from there. I think it went quite well and I was pretty happy with how I ended up.

I tried to set a goal of finishing between 10th and 15th, not too high, so to get that I was pretty happy with my performance.

Your heat race result on Saturday night at Chase Field was especially impressive, finishing third, which I guess we could say was a better result than what most expected right?

For sure, once I kind of got that first race out of the way Nathan was really happy and he said if we worked on a few little things – things like intencity and not making mistakes – then we could get a good result.

We worked really hard together during the week, he put a lot of effort in with both Tye [Simmonds] and myself. It paid off with third in the heat, but unfortunately in the main I had a crash. I think without that crash then I would have bettered my result over Anaheim.

You said you’ve been riding your Australian spec bike that you rode in Super X, but it looks to be right on par with the best in the U.S…

Yeah, I think it is and it’s a bike that I’ve already done a whole season of Super X on. Over here I’m training and racing on it, so it’s not easy, but luckily I have Danny Apro here on the spanners and keeping it up to speed.

To be honest I think it’s really good and the only change that we’ve made is using the race fuel over here.

Usually it’s your brother Jay Marmont we hear about overseas, but you’ve spent quite a lot of time over there during your career training and riding. Do you think already knowing so many people over there has helped you settle in so quickly?

For sure I think that’s helped. It’s such a big change from Australia to over here – everything you read in the papers, everything you seen on TV and all that can be quite daunting. You have to take it all in and then you have to worry about your racing on top of that.

For me to come here when Jay was here helped me get all of that extra excitement out of my system and now I can just concentrate on my racing. That’s been a big help, so it’s good to finally do a race over here and show the people that I can ride a bike.

JDR has been documenting the team’s launch into the American scene with the ‘Coming to America’ web-based film series, so that must also be a pretty cool way to keep memories for you as a rider?

The way that the JDR team looks at things is different to other teams and they are marketing themselves well. The team is fresh over here and they want some big sponsors and good riders – they deserve big recognition for what they’ve achieved.

It’s good to have the episodes showing the behind the scenes that people don’t see. It’s good to get an insight and also good for us as riders for sure. I think even bigger and better things will come for the team along the way as well.

And what’s the plan from this point, are you in again for LA this weekend?

Yeah, I mean originally when I came here it was decided with Jay [Rynenberg – team owner] and Nathan that we’d just do two rounds. They didn’t want to put pressure on me, just wanted to see how we went and we have done that now. I guess with my results, I’m kind of where I expected to be, even though I believe I can be up the front more.

They’re absolutely stoked in the way I’ve been riding and my effort, so after the weekend Jay asked what the plan was. I told him I really wanted to stay but the ball’s in his court, so the final decision was up to him. He said he wasn’t going to let me go home without going to LA, and hopefully I might be able to go to Oakland as well.

It looks like I’ll be staying for another round at least, so I’m stoked on that. Unfortunately Danny has to go home during the week and I’ll be without him, but there are plenty of staff on the team who can help me out.

Just quickly, this year you’re scheduled to step up to the Pro Open class in Australia on the 350 SX-F with the JDR KTM team – that must really rejuvenate you after so many years in the Lites class?

I’m really looking forward to coming home and getting a start in that series because I’ve got the opportunity to ride the 350 in the Open class and I think it will be a good bike for me. I feel as though I have a bit of a head start doing what I’m doing over here.

It’s just something I needed to do after racing in the Lites for so many years, now it’s up to me to pick up my speed and intencity so I can do well. Hopefully I can keep some momentum flowing from over here and do well in the Nationals.

Okay buddy, well good luck this weekend and we’ll see you there since MotoOnline is coming over for a few rounds!

I heard that! Cool, thanks Al.