It’s the Easter long weekend and while I’d like to say I’m currently kicking back with my feet up, the reality is it’s been a massive one on CycleOnline.com.au duties at the Australian Superbike Championship.

Racing is very quiet at this time of the year, being the first time in a long time that there’s no American Supercross on, but MXGP will host its third round at Valkenswaard.

You might be wondering where our qualifying report was this morning, but since it is on the Easter weekend, they’re instead putting the heats on Sunday and races Monday, so stay tuned for that over the next couple of days.

Australians are particularly excited for the first European round of the grand prix season because it also marks the EMX250 debut of Monster Energy Kawasaki MX2 Racing Team rider Hunter Lawrence.

Straight out of juniors, Lawrence has bypassed Under 19 and professional competition in Australia to instead hone his craft in Europe’s feeder ranks on board a factory KX250F.

Source: Supplied.

Anybody who’s seen the young Queenslander – and younger brother Jett for that matter, who’s also on got an international deal with Kawasaki – will know just how capable he is. The pre-season build-up’s been great and we’re tipping massive things this season.

Superbikes have just hit the track however here at Wakefield Park, so I have to race off now to keep up that coverage on our partner site. Happy Easter! Here’s Adam Spence for more…

This week has been slightly different for me personally and if you’re a regular viewer you may have even noticed that my face hasn’t been popping up on our stories as often.

Obviously there’s a good reason behind that, we’re gearing up for by far our biggest year yet here at MotoOnline.com.au, so plenty of last-minute preparations are necessary.

As always, we’re planning on bringing our viewers premium weekly content and race coverage from the weekend’s events, but we’re also stepping things up in other departments.

Within my position as production manager, I cover many roles within MotoOnline in terms of the website and its parent company, Foremost Media.

As well as publishing news, interviews and more on the website daily, I’m working away behind the scenes on design related projects, films and photography. With just one week remaining until the first round of the 2016 Motul MX Nationals, there’s plenty of those tasks to be handled.

For example, this week I was on hand to shoot the 2016 KTM Motocross Racing Team intro video with defending MX1 champion Kirk Gibbs and MX2 contender Caleb Ward.

You may ask, what about Luke Styke? If you didn’t catch our post earlier this week, Styke unfortunately re-injured his achilles injury and underwent surgery to repair it this week. He will be sidelined for quite some time by the sounds of things, let’s hope for a speedy recovery for the number 26!

Image: Jeff Crow.

Obviously we can’t release any imagery from the KTM shoot just yet, but the content will be made public before round one on 3 April and I can tell you now, you’ll love those Austrian-made machines. The KTM crew really does run a tight ship and their 2016 livery is absolutely awesome, they have really outdone themselves.

Both Gibbs and Ward are looking super comfortable aboard their 2016 machines and this was actually the first time personally seeing Gibbs back on the bike since his 2015 injury.

As always he’s looking fast and confident, obviously he has that added pressure of defending his championship this year, but if it is bothering him, he’s definitely hiding it well.

I’d just like to say a big thanks to the whole KTM crew for their hospitality throughout the shoot, for being super easy to work with and for their continued efforts to ensure such a high level of professionalism in the sport.

Here at MotoOnline we’re all about bringing our viewers a premium product and it’s no different with those guys, the more of those teams out there, the better!

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