Image: Alex Gobert (Foremost Media).

Australian export Brett Metcalfe will return for another full season of the MX Nationals in 2018 after signing with Honda Racing.

The team, which won the Australian Supercross Championship with Justin Brayton last year and is on track to take another title, is set to enter the outdoors for the first time since 2015.

Metcalfe’s signing is an instrumental one after he rode three different brands this season, beginning the series with SD3 Husqvarna, riding a private KTM at Murray Bridge and then completing the back-half of the year with Mega Fuels Monster Energy Kawasaki in place of Aleksandr Tonkov.

With that experience to his credit – the first time in well over a decade that he had competed at home – it’s expected that the 33-year-old from Mannum will factor in the race for next year’s MX1 championship aboard the Honda Racing CRF450R.

“I finished the best overall I have finished with Honda in America,” Metcalfe commented. “In 2009 I was third in the 250 Class AMA Motocross Championship and in 2010 I took six podium finishes on my way to second overall to Ryan Dungey in the 450 Class after taking third in the East Coast SX Lites Championship.

“I want to win an Australian Motocross Championship in the MX1 class. It’s something I always promised myself I would try and do before I finished racing professionally. I came back to America following a trying year in Australia to prepare for next year and I am definitely looking forward to working with the Honda Racing team in Australia next year.”

Honda’s factory motocross program has been operated by the Team Honda Racing organisation led by Paul Free for the past two seasons, however with that team’s closure it is understood that Yarrive Konsky’s longstanding program will return to the fore.

“Since Brett’s departure from Australia in 2002, you quickly realise how much he has actually achieved,” commented Honda Motorcycles brand and motorsport manager Glyn Griffiths. “I think people forget his race-winning qualifier at the MXoN in 2013 against the best riders in the world and we are really excited to form this new relationship with one of the world’s most established racers.”

Despite missing the Horsham and not finishing a number of races this year, Metcalfe was eventually credited seventh in the final championship standings with podiums at Nowra and Shepparton upon transferring to Kawasaki in the mid-stages of the season.