Image: Foremost Media.

Empire Kawasaki’s Jayden Rykers has been ruled out of this weekend’s third round of the 2021 Penrite ProMX Championship, the team citing strict travel restrictions from Western Australia as the cause.

As a result of regulations in WA and subsequent flight cancellations due to the escalating covid-19 outbreak in Sydney, WA resident Rykers is unable to travel across to New South Wales without undergoing mandatory quarantine on return.

A hard border closure introduced on Wednesday, 23 June, means travel is not currently permitted from NSW to WA without an exemption. Exempt travellers must self-quarantine for 14 days and undergo a series of covid-19 tests during that period after arriving, which Rykers and the team decided it wouldn’t be ideal for him complete.

“Unfortunately due to travel restrictions, the team will not be able to race this weekend at round four of the ProMX Championship,” explained team manager Tyson Cherry. “Jayden and Haruki have been hard at training and making great progress, so we are excited to get back racing at the rescheduled Gillman round.”

It’s also been revealed that a cracked shoulder injury sustained in a practice incident would have delayed Japanese import Haruki Yokoyama’s ProMX debut regardless, only just returning to riding and now planning to join the MX2 series at a latter round.