Empire Kawasaki’s Luke Clout feels he’s ‘mentally in a good spot’ as he gears up for the 2024 Fox Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX), leveraging experience from the 2024 ProMX season on the KX450. MotoOnline caught up with last season’s SX1 runner-up for a Five Questions interview.

Luke, we saw flashes of brilliance throughout ProMX 2024 – you nearly had that moto win early in the season at Horsham – but things kind of unravelled from there on. If you had to recap the season, what were your thoughts?

Yeah, motocross was up and down for us. It was a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the year, but we kept chipping away and the team and I got the bike to a spot where I was comfortable. I’m happy with the way it ended and happy that I stayed healthy throughout the season. So, it was up and down, for sure, but it was good to end on a high note.

It was obviously not the end result that you were looking for on paper, we know the standards you set for yourself, so talk about finishing that last round at QMP on the podium and how much that’s going to mean for your confidence moving into supercross in just over a month.

That was definitely important. Towards the end of the season I just really wanted to get on the overall podium and start trending in that upward direction before we started supercross, and we did that. I started to get comfortable on the bike right before Toowoomba I’d say, so from there I tried to knuckle down and focus on putting myself in good positions and try to bring that feeling that I’d had riding during the week into the race weekends. I knew I could do it all year, it just didn’t really eventuate. So, to put it together and have that round at QMP was important heading into supercross, so we can carry that confidence now.

Explain to us what it was like making the switch from a powerhouse team like CDR Yamaha to Empire Kawasaki – a team that has the tools to get the job done, but doesn’t have the years under their belt like CDR.

I was really lucky that Brad McAlpine came across to Empire Kawasaki with me. We did a lot of testing early in the season and got to a spot where I was comfortable, but as I started to get quicker, we needed to make changes to the bike to continue progressing and we just didn’t have a whole lot of data to go off, if any really, so that was the biggest thing. Going into each round, we didn’t exactly know how the bike was going to react and what worked and what didn’t, so coming from a team like CDR, where they have so many years of data and knowledge under their belt, that was probably the biggest thing I’d say. At about the halfway point of the season, we started to figure out the direction of the bike and how to set it up prior to rounds, and then we started to get the ball rolling. So, I think having Brad with me was really important, I was lucky to have him come across with me. The team have done an amazing job too, with the scale that they are, they really put work in to help me get comfortable and we learned about the bike together, so I think that’s going to be huge heading into supercross now.

It’s early days for you riding the KX450 on supercross, but what are the initial impressions of the bike in that environment?

It’s really good. I’ve only done a handful of days riding supercross on it, and honestly, I feel pretty much as good as I did at the end of last season. Straightaway I felt comfortable and up to speed, whereas it usually takes me a little bit to get used to supercross again, so yeah, the bike feels good, it turns really well and I just feel comfortable on it. I think having that motocross season under our belts and close to eight months on the bike is going to make it easier for us coming into supercross and just knowing what changes we need to make moving forward, like we know how the bike is going to react to certain changes now, so that’s going to be important for us, but I’m definitely impressed with the bike on supercross straight off the bat.

You finished supercross off with a bang last season in Melbourne, it was arguably the best we’ve ever seen you ride. What’s it going to take to replicate rides like that consistently against the likes of Dean Wilson?

I think we just need to keep doing what we’re doing. Last year, I entered the season with an injury, so we got off to a bit of a slow start and it took me a little bit to get going. So, getting through motocross healthy and trending in that upward direction was really important for us, I already feel really comfortable. So, I think being healthy is the main thing, and having those good results at QMP has given me the confidence that I need – mentally I’m in a good spot. I raced Dean last year and got to see how he rides and races, and I managed to get the better of him in Melbourne, but he had a championship to wrap up. I’m just focusing on myself and I think if we keep working the way we have been, we’ll be in a good position for the championship.