KTM Australia press release:

KTM Off-Road Racing Team riders Toby Price, Tye Simmonds and Daniel Sanders have plenty to play for coming into this weekend’s third and final round of the InsureMyRide Australian Enduro-X Nationals at Melbourne’s Calder Park raceway.

The very specific demands of enduro-cross racing are extremely difficult to execute consistently and the KTM team has achieved much better than most; currently ranked third, fourth and fifth overall.

However, all three recognise full well that Saturday is the last chance for Aussie riders to show some ascendancy prior to the Australian Off-Road Championship kick-off a week later, and their final chance to get a win over American enduro Cross racing specialist Mike Brown.

Simmonds finished second last time round on his KTM 350 EXC-F, and Price, the only other rider apart from Brown to take a race win in the series, isn’t satisfied playing second fiddle to anyone. However both will be mindful of being upstaged by their young team mate Sanders, who has his heart set taking his KTM 300 EXC to a podium finish.

Flair Action Sports KTM rider Kristie McKinnon currently holds second in the women’s championship on her KTM Freeride 250R, with teammate Rhianna Buchanan in sixth.

Tye Simmonds – “The last round was definitely good for me, the first round was definitely frustrating when one little hiccup sort of a wrecked my night. It would’ve been interesting to see where we’d be if that hadn’t have happened but that’s racing. In Sydney the crash I had in my heat was even bigger than the one in Brisbane, and I thought we were going to be in for a rough night but we turned it around. Mike is just on a different level; he’s unreal to watch, the way he gets stuff dialled lap in, lap out. For me this is my first go at it, and the goal is always to win, but I can only give it my best. The last couple of weeks have been good, I’ve been on the bike a lot more than what I have previously, and the time spent riding with Chucky and Toby has been good.”

Toby Price – “It’s been a good couple of weeks on the bike, and now we’re just back here at Chucky’s place. Actually we had a bit of an adventure last night; we went out at about 10.30, riding around just using the headlights on the bike and we didn’t finish until about 1.30 this morning – it was a bit random trying to do some special test times at midnight, but it’s something different! My first two rounds haven’t really gone to plan, and we struggled a little bit with starts, so I just want to get down to Melbourne and just improve on some starts, run up near the front as much as we can and hopefully finish off the weekend with a podium. It would definitely be nice to get on that top step, and Brownie at the moment has definitely shown that he is the man to beat so it would be nice to try and get a hold of him.”

Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders – “I’m feeling much better and 100% healthy. After Sydney we went off to Hattah and did some testing up there, and felt really good after a few days of settling in to the sand and the speed. It was good to learn the ropes from the boys a bit. I’ve just headed back down with Price and have been riding some off-road stuff and now we’re back into some enduro-cross training. I’m sitting in fifth at the moment so I will try again to get on the podium, and hopefully get a few points up on Toby and Tye, who I’m sitting pretty close to in the championship! Hopefully I can feel pretty good on this track and give them a good run, and get the points on the board.”

Ben Grabham – “Since Sydney we’ve had a good couple of weeks with the boys on the bikes. We’ve been to Hattah and done some desert testing and they’ve all logged some good time on the bikes, then gone back to Daniel’s place and done quite a bit of riding there on his enduro-cross track. The bikes have been pretty much faultless all series, so we haven’t really changed too much there, just tweaked a few little things that will try to get Daniel a little more comfortable and consistent, because he’s definitely got speed. I think there’s a little bit of extra motivation for the guys to get ahead coming into the AORC the following weekend. But I think all our boys, because we’re so close on speed, will be just trying to beat each other. I can see that when they are training, they just push each other forwards. We are third and fourth and fifth at the moment and obviously we’d like them all to move up a position or two. Anything can happen in enduro-cross.”

For more information on KTM motorcycles visit www.ktm.com.au or www.facebook.com/KTMAustralia.