Image: Foremost Media.

Multiple Australian champion Matt Moss will line up at the Appin round of the Penrite ProMX Championship this weekend as a replacement for injured WBR Yamaha MX1 team regular Bailey Malkiewicz.

After planning to only contest supercross events in 2023, Moss has confirmed that he’ll ‘definitely consider doing more rounds’ outdoors this year depending on how Sunday goes with the team.

“At this stage, I’m just filling in for Appin, but I’d definitely consider doing more rounds,” Moss told MotoOnline. “My main focus this year is WSX [World Supercross Championship] and Australian Supercross, but I got the opportunity to get on this new Yamaha earlier and race the Appin round and get a feel for the new bike. That’s the main reason I’m doing it.

“WBR is a great team that really wants to have a good crack in the 450 class. I think we have a shot at a podium this weekend, and the team deserve good results. Obviously, no one scored points at Wonthaggi with the devastating incident that happened there, so Appin will essentially be the new round one for the MX1 class. Things might change with what I want to do if I end up going well, but the team and I are going in with no real expectations or plans on doing extra rounds, we’re just taking it day-by-day.”

Moss started to find his feet late in the ProMX Championship last year, racing to a season-best second overall at the Maitland round. He started the day qualifying second, before logging 2-2 moto scores to land his first motocross podium since returning to the sport.

As part of BBR 102 Motorsports Yamaha, he then went on to qualify fastest at the next round in Coffs Harbour, before a crash in the opening laps of moto one left him on the sidelines for the rest of the day, prompting him to miss the rest of the motocross series and switch his focus to the supercross later in the year.

The 34-year-old has pieced together many different deals since then, racing the SX2 class in WSX and the Paris Supercross – in which he won – for the Bud Racing Kawasaki team before returning home to race AUSX in the SX1 class on a YZ450F and earning two wins on the way to P2 in points.

Since then, Moss jumped at the opportunity to race Monster Energy Supercross, competing in the Oakland round of the 250SX West class for the BarX Suzuki team. Considering all of the bike time and travelling the world racing select supercross events, he has not ridden a motocross track since his last outing at Coffs Harbour.

“My plans have obviously changed a little bit with this WBR gig coming up, but the possibility to finish some AMA rounds with BarX are still there and that’s definitely something I’m still interested in doing, so we’ll have to work it out,” he added.

“Today would’ve been day five back on a motocross track, but I was rained out. The transition back to motocross has been smooth, but this deal really came up last-minute, plus I’m still working for Stirling Concrete… I’m hoping to get two more days on the bike before Appin just to get that little bit more comfortable.

“I don’t really have expectations on results for this weekend, but Appin is my local club and track. When I say local, I don’t actually ride the race track and the last time I raced it was in 2015, so it’s been a while, but I’ll have the comfort of having lots of family and friends there supporting me, so that’ll be a big boost for me for sure.

“Obviously, I want to win, but I have to be realistic and I will have only had six or seven days on this bike, so we’ll see, anything can happen. The bike is amazing, I really love this new YZ450F, so we’ll see what happens. There’s great competition in MX1 this year, so for me, anything in the top five would be absolutely amazing for my first race back.

“If we tick that goal off, we might make the goal higher if we do more rounds, but I’m looking forward to this weekend. I’ve been SX-only for a while now and swapping back and forth between bikes, so now that I’m on this bike and working toward something, it’s given me a new outlook, I’m rejuvenated and really excited to go racing, especially with it being close to home.”