Image: Alex Gobert (Foremost Media).

It has been a promising start to CDR Yamaha’s 25th anniversary year with defending Motul MX National MX1 champion Dean Ferris taking a clean sweep at the Wonthaggi season-opening round last weekend.

According to team owner Craig Dack, it’s an exciting time for the CDR and Yamaha Motor Australia as they enter the 2017 Australian racing season on a high note ahead of the remaining nine rounds of competition.

“It’s quite exciting for us and I think it’s going to be a pretty solid year this year,” Dack told MotoOnline.com.au. “It’s a long way to go and we hear the cliche that it’s race-by-race and all that sort of stuff, but Dean, myself and the team have really connected well now after one-year and an off-season.

“There’s a lot of harmony within the team and it’s not try-hard, it’s organic harmony, so it’s quite an exciting to start for our 25th anniversary year.”

As the most successful and longest-running team in the sport domestically, Dack credits much of the team’s achievements and longevity to their strong and stable relationship with Yamaha Motor Australia.

“We’ve won nearly 50 championships in that 25 years and there’s a lot of reasons for our success,” Dack said. “All of my staff and riders that we have had, they’ve played a big role in it, but I think the main reason that we’ve had so much success and longevity is the relationship that we’ve got with Yamaha.

“We’re the longest-running and most successful motorcycle racing team in the history of the sport in Australia, and I think that is purely because of the stability we’ve had within our relationship with Yamaha and CDR – it has just been strong, ongoing and solid.”

CDR Yamaha newcomer Dylan Long also kicked off the team’s 25th anniversary year with a top 10 finish at the season-opener as he continues to recover from a complicated off-season wrist injury.