Carlton Dry Honda Thor Racing’s Ford Dale has sent out all sorts of warning signals early in the 2012 Monster Energy MX Nationals, but has yet to reach the form he and his team are expecting of him this season.

Fresh from a week-long training stint with his teammate Ben Townley, we caught up with the laid-back Sunshine Coaster at Coonabarabran to get his thoughts on five motocross-related subjects.

Carlton Dry Honda Thor Racing's Ford Dale. Image: Alex Gobert.

Training with Ben Townley in New Zealand…
Ben’s got a great set-up over there. His home track is this crazy natural-terrain circuit with some perfectly built-up jumps. It was really good going over there for a week to see how he operates his training and riding.

Ben helped me out with a few things that I need to work on and gave me some different ways to address them. Hopefully I can take everything he taught me into account and better my riding.

The influence of having two international teammates…
I think it’s been really beneficial to me. Early on did a lot of practicing with British Motocross Champion Brad Anderson, he came up to my place before Conondale and we rode a lot together, then after Conondale I went to Ben’s for a week. I’ve tried to take advantage of having such experienced riders on the team and learn as much as I can from them. They’ve both raced on some of the biggest stages in the world. It can only help me.

The new track layout at Coonabarabran…
Whatever they build out here I love it. Last year there was almost a whole separate track over the back side of the hill, whereas this year we went straight over, turned around and came straight back. It make it a lot easier, but I really liked it.

The actual track is deceiving though – it looks soft, but it’s actually quite hard pack underneath, which makes it slippery. The lines seemed to blow out and they needed to rip it a bit deeper, but the layout and the speed of it was excellent.

Staying injury free this year…
I’ve had a lot of injuries during my career, but this year I’m trying to work on being consistent and approach each race with that mentality. That was my plan last year too, but it didn’t exactly go the way I wanted it to and sat out almost the whole season with a knee reconstruction.

The crap thing with injuries is you never know when you’re going to get hurt, just like Ben did this weekend. Shit happens and you can’t stop it. The only thing you can do is not take unnecessary risks, but even then it can happen at any time.

Comparing this year’s championship to 2011…
It’s been great so far. The promoters are working with riders a lot more to help improve it. At round one they banned mechanics from entering the start-gate between the two back-to-back races, but that made it really hard trying to catch your breath and having to sort everything out yourself.

WEM listened to the riders’ feedback and have permitted us to have one mechanic per rider on the start-gate now, which is a lot better. I really like having two 15-minute races back-to-back then a 30-minute at the end of the day, and there seems to be more trucks in the pits and a lot more high-profile sponsors on board. Everything is a step up from last year, that’s for sure.