Polyflor Honda’s Brodie Connolly has been exceptional this season, wrapping up the title at MX Farm’s penultimate round over the weekend with a dominant 1-1 performance, while Boost Mobile Honda’s Kyle Webster’s 1-2 scorecard helped extend his advantage in MX1 to 14 points over title rival Jed Beaton. MotoOnline caught up with the Honda duo after the motos for this Debrief interview.

MX1

Image: Foremost Media.

Boost Mobile Honda’s Kyle Webster. Kyle, top step here again today, extended the points lead to 14 ahead of next weekend’s finale – take us through the emotions.

Today was unreal, honestly, I couldn’t have asked for too much more. I had a really good first moto, I sort of just rode my own laps in that, the track was super slippery. So I just rode the laps, did nothing too crazy, and managed to win. Moto two, got off to another good start and rode some decent laps, Jed [Beaton] came past me and got the win, but I managed to sit there in second and it was enough for the overall. To extend the points lead today was good, it feels good to have a little buffer, but there’s still plenty of racing.

You seem very calm, even coming into the weekend you seemed very calm. On the inside, is it starting to set in that you could win this championship?

For sure. I’ve never been in this position for a championship where it’s going down to the last weekend. I would say I was never the last few weeks, more so practising. You just hear those horror stories of things going wrong, so I’ve just been taking a bit easy during the week. But I don’t know, I feel like it really relaxed me this weekend, even after a really bad superpole session I still felt really relaxed about the day. It just felt like another weekend of racing. This week will be interesting, but I’m going to just try and continue to do what I’ve been doing, and next weekend we’ll just take it race by race and whatever happens, happens.

What’s the mentality for QMP, do you want to win the races next weekend to wrap up the championship? A lot of riders are like that, is that you?

I’ve got 14 points now, so it’s still not massive. It’s one of those things I think, you say you want to win the race, but I don’t know. We’ll see what happens when we get to that point.

What’s next for you if you win this title? Do you want to stay in Australia, or do you want to go and spend the time overseas whether it’s MXGP or AMA?

I’ve still got a deal to stay here in Australia with Honda. I’m very fortunate, I’ve been with them for a long time and it’s nice to have the home feeling with them. Racing in America did give me that itch, but it’s hard cause everywhere is so full. If I get a chance to go back and do a few more races next year I definitely will, but as for a permanent ride, nothing has come up from it, so I guess staying here is the go.

With your program for the rest of the season, you’ll obviously be prepping to race MXoN, but do any of te dates line up for you to do another national in America?

No not really. The final national there is the weekend after QMP, so it’d be tight to try and squeeze that in. I just want to enjoy whatever happens next weekend, spend a couple of days at home before I fly to America to prep for MXoN and start getting used to a 250 again. It’s going to be a hectic few weeks I think, but it’s going to be a fun challenge.

MXoN is the weekend before the first round of Australian Supercross, what are the intentions for you there?

I’ll have to wait and see. I did it in 2019 after nations, I did supercross with no prep, I just rocked up at Brisbane indoor. It didn’t really work out that well, and I think jumping from a 250 back up to the 450 a week later with no supercross prep, that’s probably just asking for trouble. It sucks it’s that close, and it’s annoying that it’s a double header. But it’s one of those things, Yarrive [Konsky] has his guys from America coming, so the pressure isn’t solely on me for that. So I’m fortunate in that way cause I can really focus on – and enjoy – nations and not have to worry about both.

Are you excited to get back on the 250? You had a lot of success with Honda in the past in MX2. They recently had the 2025 launch for the CRF250R, did you get to spin some laps?

Yeah I did, I was surprised. It was cool, I haven’t got a lot to reference it to cause I haven’t ridden one for a while, but I think it’s going to be good. It wasn’t as much of a difference as I was expecting. it’ll take a little while to get more used to, I did ride one last year at Gillman for a state title, I rode Brodie’s [Connolly] cause he didn’t come. It took me a few races, then I was back into it.

I know you probably can’t answer this, but your bike… is it going to be a U.S. bike, like the same base as a Jo Shimoda bike, do you know yet?

I think Yarrive and the guys that are putting it together for me over there, they’ve been working really close with Lars [Lindstrom] and the Lawrences. From what I’ve gathered I think it’ll be something very close, if not the same. I’m pretty sure they’ve put something really solid together for me.

I’m looking forward to it. We’ll see you next weekend at QMP.

Cheers, see you there.

MX2

Image: Foremost Media.

The 2024 Pirelli MX2 champion, congratulations Brodie. Clinching the title one round early here at Gympie. Take us through that.

Yeah, I’m stoked! Cool way to do it going 1-1. I just wanted to get that first race out of the way. So when I won I was pretty stoked, I just had to make sure I didn’t do anything silly in the second race. It’s been an awesome season, it still hasn’t really sunk in, but I’m stoked.

Let’s rewind a couple of years. You came over to race ProMX with WBR Yamaha, you did a handful of races with them, and then a couple of years later you’re the MX2 champion. Back then, did you know you could be in this position?

Yeah, a couple of years ago after Motocross of Nations at ReBud, Yarrive said that he noticed me on track and I got a message from him and that’s how it all started two years ago. He took a big chance on me just being a random kid from New Zealand that no one really knows, so it’s cool that it all paid off. I learned a lot last year, I had no clue how to train, or how to handle different situations. But yeah, I learned a lot and I think I carried that over to this year and we were able to get the job done.

Last year the plan was to go race supercross in America, we didn’t think you were actually going to stay and race here in Australia. Looking back now, are you happy with your decision to stay here?

Yeah for sure. I believe everything happens for a reason, so when I got hurt last year in America it turned my thinking around a lot, and that’s led to me being where I am now. So yeah, I really think everything happens for a reason, and I’ve really been trying to make the right decisions over the last couple of years, and it’s worked out pretty well I feel.

We know Yarrive makes some weird decisions from time to time, so wrapping this title up early, has there been a thought of racing MX1 at QMP?

Nah, there was no talk about that. Obviously, it’d be cool, those boys are hooking at the moment, but yeah there’s been no talk of it at the moment. I might ride the new 2025 CRF250R next weekend though.

Last question, what’s next for you? Is the goal to go and win the Australian Supercross Championship as well? Do you want to stay in Australia next year, or do you want to go overseas?

I definitely just want to go as far as I can in the sport, whether that is in America or Europe. It’s just figuring out the best way to get there and making the right decisions. I’ve got a good crew around me that’ll help me work it out. But yeah, what’s next is that race in China, then MXoN, and then supercross. So, it’s going to be full-on over the next few months trying to juggle riding supercross and motocross. So we’ll take it as it comes, but the goal is definitely to try and get to the top of the sport.

Thank you!