KTM Australia press release:

With wins at Finke and Hattah and a podium finish in his maiden Dakar Rally already under his belt, KTM’s Toby Price has extended his 2015 purple patch to include a successful defence of the Australian Off-Road Championship – the fifth AORC crown of his career!

The KTM Enduro Racing Team rider crafted a cautious second-place finish during tricky conditions at Kyogle yesterday, but made himself right at home today, dominating proceedings to place the championship beyond doubt in the best possible way, with a big win.

In his farewell season racing in Australia after he signed a “dream come true” contract with the KTM Factory Red Bull Rally Racing squad to focus on Dakar and the world Rally Championships for seasons 2016 and 2017, Price was determined to put the title beyond doubt at Kyogle to remove the pressure for the final two rounds in three weeks time, and he did exactly that.

KTM Enduro Racing Team mate Daniel Sanders enjoyed another super-solid weekend behind the bars of the KTM 300 EXC, finishing third outright yesterday and fourth today, and keeping the E3 class alive with another 2, 2 result behind his rampaging teammate.

On his first trip to Kyogle, Tye Simmonds moved to within a point of second place in the E2 category with 2, 3 finishes on his KTM 450 EXC in the hotly contested class. The Bourke racer posted a very impressive fourth outright on Saturday, before carding seventh today.

Toby Price – KTM 500 EXC – “We’re stoked. That’s the result we were looking for, and we had a good weekend. Saturday I didn’t quite fire into gear straight away and there were a few mistakes. We weren’t allowed to walk the track and it was meant to be cross country, but it ended up being sprints, so I came in not too prepared on Saturday and it took me a little bit to get going. But we still had a pretty good result finishing second yesterday and coming away with the win today and my fifth Australian off-road championship is just a dream come true. It’s been a great year and I can’t thank the whole KTM team enough, Jeff Leisk and Grabbo and all the boys, Mick and Trav and Blizzard, Tim Cole, everyone’s been an awesome help this year and made it all that little bit easier for myself to worry about what I’ve got to do. So, yeah, unreal!”

Tye Simmonds – KTM 450 EXC “Let’s not talk about today, yesterday was pretty good. To me I do a lot better in the open tracks, so when we started in the plantation yesterday and it was really tight, I struggled there. It bucketed down the night before so it made it very slippery. My times in the open tracks were saving me after my times in the tight stuff, but I clawed back to fourth outright yesterday, and second in class. Today a few boys stepped it up and I was getting smoked, just a long way off the pace. The bike was running unreal, it was just me. I obviously need to do a little bit more riding in that tighter stuff.”

Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders – KTM 300 EXC – “I’m happy to get these results here for sure; when the rain came in I got a big grin on the face. There was a little confusion with how we were going to run it after it all got wet, so we canned the cross country and ran six sprints on Saturday. The first one I was second outright – beat Pricey and stuff in the nice technical. It was a bit like home with the hard-packed clay so that was sort of in my favour. Today I hadn’t crashed until the last test today, where I crashed twice and still managed to get fourth overall! I was sort of amazed by that. I wish I hadn’t crashed, to show that I could ride a pretty gnarly track. That was sort of a confidence booster, but it goes to show, you’ve got to concentrate until you cross the finish line.”

Ben Grabham, Team Manager – “Any weekend Toby can wrap up the championship with two rounds still to go is an awesome weekend, so that was amazing. It was one of those tricky weekends where it could have turned bad pretty quick, it was fantastic to help Toby win his fifth outright AORC, and seeing he’s going overseas next year it’s even better. The track was tricky for a big-bore four stroke, but he just took it a bit easier and as the day went on got faster and faster. By the end he was only three seconds behind, so today with the same tracks he had mega speed behind him and won one by 14 seconds which is just huge! In terms of individual performances we’ve had better, but it was solid. Chucky had an awesome result with third yesterday behind Toby and Hollis, and today there was a few problems but he soldiered on. Tye went great again. It might take him the year to find his feet in tricky off-road conditions like this, but he was still solid both days. Toby was just smart this weekend, it would have been easy for him to push too hard yesterday in the mud and have a big one, but he’s done everything he needed to wrap up the championship which is pretty amazing.”

For more information on KTM motorcycles visit www.ktm.com.au or www.facebook.com/KTMAustralia.