Source: Supplied.

Supercross icon Chad Reed has revealed he’s still uncertain which manufacturer he’ll race aboard at this year’s Monster Energy AUS-X Open in Sydney on 11-12 November as he continues to negotiate his plans for the 2018 racing season.

The multi-time champion made the revelation in a recent interview on RacerX Online, where he admitted the prestigious Australian event is somewhat of a problem as he has had minimal riding time and training under his belt, with no bike yet finalised to ride just a month out.

“The Aussie race is the problem, to be honest,” Reed stated. “I’m committed to it and I don’t know. I think I’m less than a month [out], and I haven’t rode. I’m a little bit nervous about all this. I’m not in shape. I’m not. I haven’t been riding or training. I’ve just been concentrating on other things outside of motorcycles.

“Obviously the motorcycle stuff like trying to figure out a ride and a job and things like that. A week ago this conversation could have been really different. I kind of felt that something was going to happen and I was going somewhere, but that kind of fizzled a little bit, unfortunately. So now we’re back to square one. I’m not sure what I’m going to ride in Australia. Maybe my two-stroke.”

Reed, who has been in this position before where he raced a Vodafone-backed Honda at Newcastle’s Super X event in 2010, has posted a number of teasers on social media of him riding different manufacturers, expressing his liking to the Husqvarna and Honda premier class models.

The New South Wales native also indicated there’s a possibility he won’t line-up in 2018 if nothing comes to fruition, although he’s adamant he wants to continue on racing and may have to piece together a privateer effort that would differ significantly from his TwoTwo Motorsports outfit that closed its doors in 2015 after five years of operation.

“There’s a chance that I don’t race,” the number 22 continued. “Which is something that would suck, but it is what it is. I put myself in this position. I only want to ride probably two bikes for two teams. You definitely put yourself in a small window. That’s kind of where I’m at. If I’m honest, the new Honda is nice.

“The Husky I like a lot. So, there’s a chance that something could come together. I think the whole TwoTwo Motorsports concept has failed. I think I made it clear that that’s not an option. There’s a chance that I could go alone and do something, but it won’t be along the lines of how I did it before at all. It will be very, very different.

“I want to race. If I’m honest, out of all the bikes that I’ve rode and I’ve rode them all, the Husky, I really enjoy it. It’s fun. I like it. It’s light. It seems like it could be a really good race bike. Watching on the weekend the top five bikes being all the same makes me think that they’ve got something figured out. Definitely riding it makes me feel that I could achieve what I want to achieve out of it. So, we’ll see.”

Reed has spent the last two seasons with the Yamaha Factory Racing team, finishing this year’s Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship ninth in the standings with one podium to his name. He’s slated to contest this weekend’s Red Bull Straight Rhythm event aboard a privately-backed Yamaha YZ250 two-stroke.