Luke Arbon is looking forward to taking a more fun approach to his racing this year. Image: Dan McCallum.

South Australian Luke Arbon will be stepping back his program for 2013, revealing that he has put together a state level motocross and enduro deal with Yamaha in his home state.

After suffering a season ending leg injury at Coolum’s season finale of the 2012 Monster Energy MX Nationals series, the MX2 rider found himself sidelined for the whole supercross season.

The 20-year-old’s former Berry Sweet/Lucas Oil/Yamaha team then chose to revise their team program for 2013, deciding to run an MX1 only squad, leaving Arbon as a free agent scrambling to find a new ride.

“I eventually got a deal with Yamaha, just a state sort of deal to do state titles, motocross and enduro,” said Arbon. “So I’ve got a couple 450s and I’m just going to have fun with it, take a step back from the national stuff and just have a bit of fun on the 450s.

“I’ll see how I go with the state stuff and just try to make it a bit more fun and a little bit less stressful. I think that might help my riding and we’ll see where it goes from there.

“I think it will be good for me to take a step back and just take it back to the roots. Have fun with it and just ride my bike because I love riding it, not feel like I have to ride it sort of thing – that just brings all the fun back I think.”

Arbon has spent minimal time on the bike since his leg injury, but he plans to take a controlled approach to his racing and work on building up a solid fitness base once again.

“I broke my leg six or seven months ago now at the last round of motocross, so I haven’t had a bike since then and I haven’t done a lot of riding at all really,” Arbon explained. “I’ve had my bike about three weeks now and I’ve rode probably five or six times.

“We have the first round of state titles this weekend, so I’m looking forward to seeing how I can go. I feel my speed is probably still the same, but the fitness probably isn’t there – but I can build on that.”

Although he stepping down his 2013 program, the possibility of racing his home national round at Murray Bridge could still be on the cards.

“As for the nationals, Murray Bridge is close to me, so hopefully I can be ready for that,” he added. “But it’s not too far away, so I’ll see how I’m feeling leading up to that round.”