Image: Jeff Crow.

CDR Yamaha’s Dean Reardon will contest the final two rounds of the 2016 New Zealand Motocross Championship as part of his MX Nationals pre-season preparations.

Unlike many of his premier class competitors, Reardon is yet to make the pre-season trip to New Zealand in his career, admitting he has been wanting to experience the Kiwi series for quite some time.

“I’ve actually never been to New Zealand for a motocross race, I’ve wanted to for a long time,” Reardon told MotoOnline.com.au. “We see the quality of tracks that they produce and everything looks really good over there.”

The former Australian MX1 champion will use his New Zealand trip as a shake down of sorts before the 2016 Australian season kicks off on 3 April in Victoria.

“The aim is to try and get a little bit of racing under the belt before the gate drops here, there’s always some nerves or a few little problem areas you come across every year,” said Reardon. “You just want to fine tune your racing, your comfort level on the bike, things like that. So it’s really just a chance to go over there and have a bit of a shake down before we start here, and go ride some fresh new and exciting tracks at the same time.”

Although the Queenslander is not part of the championship chase, he aims to be competitive amongst the talented field that includes reigning NZ champ Cody Cooper and former MXGP contenders Dean Ferris and Todd Waters.

“You just want to be competitive, it’s not my series over there, but in saying that I’m still a racer and I’m trying to prepare for a series here,” he explained. “So you definitely want to be competitive and you want to know here you stack up.

“Cody blows peoples minds over there and here, and I’ve got a lot of time for Cody so it’ll be fun to do some racing with him again. Obviously Ferris and Waters will be there as well, so it’ll be good just to do a little bit of racing and feel a little more comfortable in that position.”

Reardon will make his New Zealand debut on 13 March at Rotorua for round three of the four round series.