He’s back! Josh Cachia will ride for Carlton Dry Honda for the remainder of 2013. Image: Simon Cudby.

Victorian fan favourite Josh Cachia has revealed that he’s agreed to terms to ride for the Carlton Dry Honda team in 2013, clinching an 11th hour deal after returning home from the United States earlier this week.

Cachia, 21, will be reunited with team owner Yarrive Konsky for the first time since 2008, piloting the factory-supported CRF250R that won both the Australian Motocross and Supercross Championships last year.

It’s a fitting home for Cachia, quickly rebounding following the shock news that JDR Motorsports will likely close its doors completely following the US supercross finals in May.

That news prompted Cachia to return to Australia ahead of schedule in a bid to challenge for the MX2 title in the Monster Energy MX Nationals, now confirmed to be joining the powerhouse Honda team alongside Ben Townley and Ford Dale.

“I’m super pumped to be back with someone that I’ve had a long history with,” Cachia commented on his return to Konsky’s team. “Not many people know, but back in the day my mum was a dirt bike racer and Yarrive raced with her and stuff.

“Ever since I was little, he was a guy I looked up to, the cool dude. Everyone called him ‘ya-rev-constantly’ and I thought that was pretty cool [laughs].”

Cachia was able to see first hand in the US the success of Eli Tomac aboard the CRF250R, excited to make his debut on the bike in the coming weeks. The 2010 Under 19s outdoor champion now has his sights set on defending the MX2 title for the team.

“You know, we’re pretty much like family and I’m just super excited to get on the bike actually,” he continued. “I know the Honda is such a good bike, I mean I saw Eli Tomac’s bike handle things I’d never seen before.

“On one side I’m really excited to develop the bike with Chris Woods and I’m looking forward to the change. It’s a breath of fresh air, I was getting a bit stale on the KTM, so a change never hurts. I just want to bring on this year with some really good results… actually, I really just want to smoke everyone.”

After battling with eventual champion Dale for the outdoor crown in 2012, it will be an interesting change of pace for Cachia, finishing third in the series last year with a number of dominant performances to close out the season.

“I’ve spoken about this to a lot of people, they’ve been like ‘Honda hey?’ and I’m like, ‘well, that’s the bike that beat me last year, so if you can’t beat them then you might as well join them [laughs]!” Cachia joked.

Fresh back from California after contesting the first six rounds of the Western Regional 250SX series, Cachia reflected on the stellar year he’s had to date. Coming off a season-best 12th at San Diego last weekend, the experience will rank as a life-changing one for him.

“It’s not so much been great for results, but more so for life experience,” Cachia said. “This year has been amazing. I went over to America, lived there for six months and I raced the world’s best! I became friends with some of the world’s best and met some really cool people in the industry.

“I made loads of friends, got heaps of information, just a great year of my life, you know? I’m 21 years of age and the 20th year of my life was out of control man, I loved it.”

Cachia’s official debut with the Carlton Dry Honda team is scheduled to come at Raymond Terrace’s season-opener on Sunday, 14 April.

Carlton Dry Honda’s Konsky also looks forward to the re-signing of Cachia after agreeing to terms, expecting the contract to be soon sealed as the team returns to defend its MX2/Lites titles.

“As Josh said, we are like family and I do look forward to potentially working with him again this year once the contract is completed,” Konsky said. “It’s definitely looking positive and we’re working with our partners to finalise the deal as soon as we can.”

Check out this film MotoOnline.com.au recently made at Milestone with Cachia during our annual trip to America: