Image: Jeff Crow.

Penrite Honda Racing has confirmed the shock immediate retirement of 2012 national MX2 champion Ford Dale, midway through a difficult MX Nationals campaign this year.

Dale, who has two children under the age of three, will hang up his helmet in favour of focusing on providing for his young family. He has struggled to meet expectations on track this season.

“The pressure on me mentally and physically to perform each week whilst providing for a young a family has taken its toll and I don’t feel I can do either job at 100 percent,” Dale said.

“I am training hard and the team has given me everything I need, however I am just not coping with the pressure of performing where I need to be and that is making it even harder. This decision to step away has nothing to do with the team – it is easy for people to assume that.

“The Penrite Honda team went above and beyond, in fact I would say the team is the best it’s been and our results aren’t doing it justice. I really need to thank them and the team sponsors; if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have been able to train at [Ricky] Carmichael’s or even race.

“The phone didn’t ring at the end of last year, I didn’t finish the season in [2013] and since then have not finished a full year. I still believed I could race at the front and I called Yarrive and told him that, he took a chance and for that I am thankful. I certainly didn’t start this season thinking I would be stepping away in the middle of the championship.”

Although Dale won’t be racing the remainder of the year, he isn’t walking away from the sport altogether, including plans in place to continue building the Racing 4 Disabled charity he is involved with.

“I am not thinking about racing at the moment, my family needs my attention and I need to find a foundation I can build on,” Dale continued. “I will still be at the track, I will be working on R4D and I will work closely with Yarrive on some other projects.

“I cannot thank him and the team enough for having my back and giving me every opportunity. I am grateful to the team’s sponsors as well as everyone on the team – Blair, Steve, George, Wayne and Cameron. I also want to thank my mechanic Daniel for his continued support and effort. He has always been there.”

After winning his MX2 title with the Yarrive Konsky-operated Penrite Honda and returning to the team for 2015, Dale has been unable to return to that winning form in MX1.

“We all know Ford has the talent,” Konsky said. “Winning an Australian championship over a season isn’t a fluke. The injuries he has sustained throughout his career are difficult to continue to come back from, coupled with having a young family would make it even harder.

“As hard as it was to accept, I need to accept it and move forward. Ford needs to be happy and he needs to put his family first. His results weren’t allowing him to do that and as the season was getting on it was affecting him more and more. To perform at the highest level you need to be in it 100 percent, happy, fit and focused.”

The Penrite Honda team will confirm Ben Townley’s return to the official team in coming weeks, however they will not replace Dale for Shepparton’s seventh MX Nationals round this weekend. The team is also working on finalising its supercross line-up.