Lawson Bopping plans to race a handful or pre-season events to hit round one of the Monster Energy MX Nationals with solid form. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

CDR Yamaha’s Lawson Bopping is planning to contest numerous club events in preparation for the upcoming 2013 Monster Energy MX Nationals series which kicks off 14 April.

Entering his third year in the premier MX1 class, Bopping will find himself up against possibly his stiffest competition to date and he will be assuring her is up to the task.

Bopping kicked off his 2013 season with a club event in Bega, New South Wales, and will head to Appin’s round one of the East Coast MX series this weekend – this event will also provide valuable track time on a scheduled MX National circuit.

“Last weekend I did my first race of the year down at Bega, it was just a club day, they have a good fun track so that was good,” said Bopping. “And this weekend is the first round of the East Coast MX series being held at Appin.

“So I’ll be doing that race and i’ll probably try to do as many of those kind of events as I can before the first round of the nationals comes around.”

In most cases, replicating a race situation during practice is a tough task, and Bopping believes that being in an actual race situation will prepare him well for the upcoming season.

“It’s just really good for practicing starts and things like that, you can’t beat racing.” he added. “It’s just a completely different feeling to practicing at home by yourself. So I’ll do a bunch of racing and that should help prepare me well for round one.”

Bopping will be joined by Billy Mackenzie on the CDR Yamaha team for 2013, click here to see how his preparations are coming along for the season in the latest edition of 70s Say.