Image: Foremost Media.

Empire Kawasaki’s Jai Constantinou has completed his first laps back on the bike following serious breaks sustained early this year and is looking to make a return for the final two rounds of the 2023 Penrite ProMX Championship.

In February, the MX2 rider crashed while competing in a Victorian state round at Wonthaggi, breaking his femur and pelvis in the incident which resulted in surgery.

Constantinou has missed the opening six rounds of ProMX this year as a result, and while his road to complete recovery still has a ways to go, he is hopeful of lining up next time out at Queensland Moto Park (QMP) on 13 August.

“We’ve sort of got seven weeks [until QMP], so that’s almost like an entire pre-season,” Constantinou explained to MotoOnline. “I’m not entirely too sure, because I haven’t come back from an injury like this before, but I have definitely got QMP and Coolum on my mind.

“My contract actually ends with Kawasaki after Coolum, it was just until the end of the motocross season. I don’t have a contract going forwards after that so I really want to try and get as strong as I can in these seven weeks and try to get to 100 percent to try and put some results on the board in the last two rounds and put my name back in the mix.”

The Victorian scored an MX2 moto podium onboard the KX250 with P3 in moto two at Maitland last year and also continued through the Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX) in SX2 with Empire Kawasaki. Following a lengthy time on the sidelines with the injuries, Constantinou completed his first laps back on the bike last week and is motivated to have a return to work towards.

“Last week was my first week back,” Constantinou added. “Just sort of doing some rut tracks and stuff but it was then good to get out on a track at a ride park and ride some jumps and stuff like that. It’s been good to be back the last sort of week or so.

“It was definitely positive just being back, you sort of feel like you are working towards something again. It can get tough with the injuries, it gets hard to stay motivated and stuff like that. Obviously, you go from working towards something to laying in a hospital bed, but it’s been happy days getting back on the bike and riding a bit more again.

“I’ve still got a long ways to go in terms of getting stronger and stuff like that, just with being off so long. I hadn’t really broken a femur or anything like that before, so I’ve got a lot more strength to build up but it is really good to be back and working towards getting back to full strength again.”