KTM Australia press release:

A brand new MX Nationals series awaits with new faces, hopes, struggles and triumphs, and KTM’s line-up of rising young guns, established players and hard-core heroes have all got one thing in common. They can’t wait to get behind the gates at Wonthaggi this Sunday.

2015 MX Nationals winner and last year’s Vice Champion Kirk Gibbs will lead the factory team into action in his fifth straight year of MX1 with KTM, having recovered from broken femur sustained a week after last year’s MX Nationals finale.

His team mate Luke Styke is Ready to Race after a constructive season of New Zealand Motocross Championship racing yielded fourth overall for the Queensland-based rider from Jervis Bay.

The KTM Motocross Racing Team’s new Manager Jay Marmont might be new in the role, but the multiple Aussie Champ more than makes up for any experiential shortfall with pure industry currency.

They’ll be joined in the premier class by freshly-crowned New Zealand MX2 champion Hamish Harwood, who, in an ironman effort, will ride both MX1 and MX2 championships aboard a pair of Davey Motorsport-backed KTM two-stroke machines.

In MX2, Harwood will be joined by Western Australian rising star Jayden Rykers, riding for the Raceline Development Team aboard a KTM 250 SX-F. Rykers last year finished fourth in his debut year in the category, and was by far the highest-placed two-stroke rider.

Also Raceline-backed, Wade Kirkland has gained promotion to the MX2 ranks on the back of an MXD season in which he gathered four podium finishes, including two rounds wins.

The fourth prong to KTM’s factory supported MX2 attack is 2014 MXD Champion Egan Mastin, back in Australia after two years racing the American amateur circuit as a 16 and 17 year old. He’ll also race a KTM two-stroke with support from Davey Motorsport.

In the MXD category, junior champion Callum Norton (Moto Tech KTM) will step up to the senior ranks, alongside Morgan Fogarty, on the third of the Raceline bikes.

Check out the factory team’s official video here:

Jay Marmont – KTM Motocross Racing Team Manager: “Our preparation level is good. New Zealand has been good for Luke after a year off, and Kirk’s in a really good frame of mind coming in. Being an ex-champion he knows what he needs to do. So for me, I don’t think it’s a matter of getting our feet wet, I think it’s a matter of putting results on the board nice and early and then building on that week in and week out. Our motto is Ready to Race and we’re ready – we’ve done what we can and we’re ready to go. It’s better to be satisfied with a win than satisfied with a top-five, so let’s just go out and do that!”

Kirk Gibbs – KTM450SX-F: “I’ve put in as much as I can and I’m as ready as I can be. Come Sunday we’ll see where I’m at. Everything’s fallen into place for us in the last few weeks which has been good. The body is feeling good, the leg feels strong from the femur injury and it will be one of the few times I haven’t taken an injury into the first round. Five years with KTM in MX1 is a cool milestone, it’s the longest I’ve been with a brand. You definitely feel smarter and better able to understand what it takes to be up front once you’ve been at it for a while, and hopefully that shows on Sunday. It was a little sad to lose Kyle who I’d worked with all the way through, but Jay can pick up on really small things because of his recent experience so I feel like he’s a huge benefit.”

Luke Styke – KTM450SX-F: “We’re pretty close to my level, but I feel like I’ve got a bit more progress to make on the racing side of things. But that will come, and I’m super excited to get the championship underway. My injury is at 100% now, there’s no niggling tightness or anything in the back of my mind. I like Wonthaggi when they prep it on the deeper side. Hopefully they do a good job with it and really turn it on. I’m excited to get there with the team again and try to get back to where I was and keep building as the season unfolds.
My starts are really good, I’m enjoying them, so I’ve got really good confidence behind the gates, so that could help me along.”

Jayden Rykers – KTM250SX-F: “We went back home last season and got a few things fixed up with the body, and we’ve been full steam ahead since the start of the year and with moving to Sydney and being based a lot closer to the team, we’ve been able to put a lot more time into the bike. The transition to the four-stroke is the kind of thing I’d been wanting to put in place for the last couple of years, it’s just that the budget didn’t allow. I’m in a happier place with living and everything seems to be gelling. At the end of the day I can say I earned this ride, but there’s always good riders coming up who want your place. I’ve got this opportunity and I’m going to put in a hard couple of years of work and make the most of it. I’ll use the facilities and structure behind me to the best of my advantage, and then move onto bigger and better things. You see a lot of people get to this stage and think they’ve made it, but the work doesn’t stop here. You’ve got to keep on going. Australia is a small fish in the pond, and you have to have the mindset, ‘I want to be the best’ – not the best in Australia. You’ve got to keep opening the next door and not be satisfied with the situation you’re in. You’ve got to keep pushing.”

Egan Mastin – KTM 250SX: “I’ve been back in Australia since late August and having this deal with Davey Motorsports is great, I’m pretty pumped about it. It’s great to be ack on home soil doing this again. It’s been a long time and there’s no place like it. I haven’t raced at Wonthaggi since back in U19s in 2014, but I like the track and I’ve always done pretty well there. I’m going for race wins a championship, so finishing first is goal.”

Callum Norton – KTM250SX-F: “I’ve just turned senior this year so I’m keen for the weekend’s MXD racing. It’s good being one of the biggest in the field, it’s not as intimidating knowing you can chuck it in there and you’re not going to just get flicked out the way. I’ve been working really hard through the off-season with a couple of pros and I’d love to be up there and straight on the podium, but there’s a lot of good competition there in U19, so hopefully we’ll come away with some solid points.”