Those with a close eye for detail will spot a few minor revisions to MotoOnline.com.au today as we ready for the new year, which is shaping up to be our best yet in terms of planning and making this very website happen on a day-to-day basis.

This year, with the help of Simon Makker, Adam Spence, Dylan Wills, Simon Cudby, Steve Matthes and more along the way, we were able to move forward once again and had a great time doing so along the way. It really has been an epic season!

We’re constantly refining the process and, as usual at this time of the year, I’m pretty confident we’ll again make strides forward come January and beyond. This past month’s been relatively quiet while we lock away advertisers and with minimal events on, but we will be remaining active across the festive season to bring you info as it happens.

Most of all though, we’re thankful for all the fans who have tuned in and made it all possible, because without readers we wouldn’t have our loyal advertisers, and without advertisers we wouldn’t have a budget to operate as we do! So thank you for checking in daily, weekly, monthly or whenever it is – the growth over the past few years has been amazing.

Luckily enough for us, the level of competition and professionalism of the sport in Australia has been extremely high once again this year, plus many Aussies have been in action all over the world doing us proud as Simon Makker mentions further below.

Image: Simon Cudby.

And, some of the greatest happenings of all have been the resurgence of new bikes, which makes coverage all that more appealing and gives our test riders plenty of opportunity to get out on track and have a blast along the way. That’s a major part of our plans this year and into the future.

That’s it from me for this, the final MX Hub (to be rebranded Moto 360 in 2015 and moved to later in the week), but rest assured we’ll be back and better than ever next year around the clock. Here’s Simon Makker with his final installment of the season, featuring some of the latest happenings around the traps…

It’s crazy to think that another year is about to enter the history books. Over the past week I’ve completed a couple of features looking back at what we’ve witnessed this year and what we can expect in 2015.

When you look at all the feats of our Aussie riders both domestically and internationally, you can’t help but be proud of their efforts. We’ve seen our lads and ladies claim world titles in both enduro (Matty Phillips and the Australian women’s team at the ISDE) and FMX (Josh Sheehan at the Red Bull X-Fighters), and the sheer number of Australians now competing on the world stage in every discipline has swelled to all-time highs.

It seems the world really is getting smaller and the prospect of heading to different parts of the Northern Hemisphere is a lot easier and attainable than it once was. I think the internet and social media have played a huge part in that.

So what do we have to look forward to next year? The battle I’m most fascinated with is the whole Ryan Villopoto vs Antonio Carioli showdown we’re going to see in the MXGPs, and it seems I’m not alone. I regularly get asked who I think will have the upper hand, which tells me that this battle is going to draw a huge amount of attention to the GPs.

But the big winner is going to be the MXGP promoters and the FIM. It’s a promoter’s dream that the dominating forces from the two biggest championships in the world will collide for a season-long battle and we’re all hoping both RV2 and AC222 both make it through the year without injuries.

On a national level, next year is shaping up to be a cracker, especially in the MX1 class. Matt Moss is undoubtedly the hot favourite to extend his win-streak, but he’s going to bring his A-game every week to keep the always improving, consistent Kirk Gibbs, the Kawasaki pairing of Adam Monea and Jake Moss (who’ll gain a wealth of experience racing in the US at the start of the year) and last year’s late-season shock revelation Jake Wright.

And that’s not including new KTM Racing recruit Luke Styke, a returning Ford Dale (Honda), and the inclusion of both Kale Makeham (Suzuki) and Cody Cooper (Honda) into MX1 factory teams.

Meanwhile, 2014 MX2 champion Luke Clout found out yesterday he’d raced the entire season with Epstein-Barr virus (basically glandular fever). If Clouty can win a championship while suffering from that, then that’s going to sound some serious alarm bells for the rest of the MX2 field as he enters the season at full health.

Anyway, that’s all from me this week, nay, the YEAR! Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas break and we’ll see you next year for what’s promising to be an absolute cracker 2015.

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