Image: Alex Gobert (Foremost Media).

The Australian factory Kawasaki organisation continues to search for a title sponsor ahead of the fast-approaching 2017 racing season.

With just five weeks remaining until the Motul MX Nationals season-opening round in Wonthaggi, team manager Troy Carroll is working to draw in further outside sponsor interest.

“Our team with Carroll Motorsports and the Kawasaki Racing Team, it solely relies on income from outside sponsorship,” Carroll told MotoOnline.com.au. “So we’re very active in the way we try to find sponsorship and I did put a recent post out on LinkedIn to gain interest, which it has done and has given us a couple of leads which I’m following up on currently.”

Racing against the clock, the former motocross and supercross national champion confirmed his team will still continue to go racing as planned if a new title sponsor deal cannot be locked in over the coming weeks.

“There’s definitely a timeline as we start racing in five weeks, so we’re trying to put it to bed straight away,” Carroll explained. “Trying to find a title sponsor isn’t something you can just do overnight, but it’s something we’re working extremely hard on at the moment.

“If we can organise to get it done, we’ll have it done for the first round and make sure it’s ready, if not, we’ll just be the running the single-sponsored Monster Energy Kawasaki Racing Team.”

Carroll also set the record straight regarding speculation around the exit of the now retired Jake Moss and previous title sponsor National Pump and Energy (NPE).

“He was a big contributing factor, but we tried to make sure that we did everything we could as a company to make sure we were fulfilling everything that NPE wanted out of us in the way of marketing,” he added. “So yes, it was for Jake, but we were trying to do everything we could for NPE to market them.”

The factory Kawasaki squad will sport an all-new rider roster for 2017 with MX1 rookie Nathan Crawford confirmed and expected to be joined by former MXGP regular Aleksandr Tonkov.