Last week CDR Yamaha recruit Kade Mosig received the call-up to replace his teammate, Jacob Wright at the opening two rounds of the New Zealand Motocross Championship. After a few days at Josh Coppins’ Altherm JCR Yamaha training facility at the top of the South Island, Mosig started his campaign off with a bang by winning the opening MX1 race at New Plymouth and hole-shotting every moto on his way to fifth overall. MotoOnline.com.au caught up with the 25-year-old straight after racing to get some fast thoughts from him on a range of topics.

Image: Mad Max Photography.

The off-season…

My off-season has been awesome. After the Australian Supercross Championship I only had a week or so to chill, then I worked for my old man concreting for a couple of weeks. I received the CDR YZ450F afterward and we got the ball rolling with some testing and everything has been going very smoothly. We’ve done a bit of testing, but the starting package we had was unreal and we’ve only needed to make a few minor adjustments to get the best out of the bike for me. As a production bike the Yamaha is unbelievably good – I proved that last year riding for my old team – but this bike is on another level. A lot of development has gone into it and we’ve received help from overseas as well. Josh Coppins has also been helping out with the testing and we’ve not got an awesome package.

Winning the first moto of the NZ MX championship…

It all happened pretty quickly, getting over here. You never want anyone to get hurt, especially your mates, but with Jacob not able to race I received the call-up and it was a great opportunity to get over here and race. I was planning on getting to the last two rounds, so now it looks like I’ll do the whole series. At New Plymouth over the weekend I had a start dialed and holeshot the first moto, then built a good lead. I saw Gibbsy coming, but I maintained the gap and held him off for the full 20 minutes. In the other two races I got great starts and holeshot both, but I wasn’t comfortable on the track, which got a little sketchy. I made a couple of mistakes in moto two, so after that I road within my limits as I didn’t want to end up on my arse.

Working with Josh Coppins…

It’s been such a big opportunity working with him. I haven’t spent time with him prior to this, and seeing his property and set-up and the team he runs is pretty unbelievable. He runs a very tight ship and our week is pretty structured. Jay Wilson Makoto Ogata from Japan are also here and we ride and train together every day. I’m here for another couple of weeks and will race the second round at Timaru before heading home for a couple of weeks to test and spend time with the CDR team. I’ll then come back for the final two rounds which are back-to-back.

Image: Mad Max Photography.

The AMA Supercross Championship…

It’s been awesome to see that there isn’t just one person dominating this year. I think it would’ve been more exciting if James Stewart was out there to, but I’m pumped to see Chad up there and I’m a fan of both Trey Canard and Ryan Dungey and it’s great to see them doing well. The tracks have been different too. The AMA guys do such a good job and try and mix it up and give the riders different challenges each round with the obstacles and track layouts. It’s been throwing some spanners in the works, which is good to see.

Melbourne summers…

Usually we’ll get all seasons in one summer, but we’ve been pretty lucky this year with some good weather. Both the weather and the quality of the practice tracks at Park4MX, Ride Park and Frankston and so on have been spot on. I’ve been keeping to myself a bit, purely because I enjoy doing my own thing. I train a bit with Jacob Wright and we’re close buddies, but that’s about it, really. The tight-knit thing is working for us now that he’s moved to Victoria from Toowoomba.

Favourite phone app…

I’ve gotta say Instagram is my most-used app, but I think Weatherzone is my favourite, as gay as that sounds. I use it a lot to see where rain is predicted, so I can then look at riding there straight afterward when the tracks are mint. It’s just like surfers looking at the surf report, I guess.