Kawasaki Motors Australia press release:

Takeshi Katsuya of the Sony Action Cam Kawasaki Racing Team has come away with 3rd place overall in the 2015 MX Nationals MX2 class.

The four time All Japan Motocross Champion struggled to find his rhythm at the final round of the MX Nationals over the weekend, where 9th place in the first moto and 12th in the second resulted in 10th overall for the day. The experienced rider adapted to many tracks he hadn’t seen before, allowing him to close the 2015 MX national’s series a mere 18 points away from the MX2 runner-up.

“I’m really happy to finish with a podium. Halfway through the season I was so close to being on top, I could have taken the championship lead then. It’s easy to say that but I just wasn’t consistent enough this year. I was very consistent in every Japanese championship that I won. This year I was up and down.”

“It was challenging only having a day to get used to the tracks I hadn’t seen before, compared to the Japanese championship rounds that are usually held over two days so you get a better chance to learn the tracks. But in saying that, I took a race win at the Shepparton round which was new to me as well. Getting into the grove was the biggest challenge this year.

Everything else went really well. I am grateful for having my team mechanic, Yukio Sugimoto, with me at every round along with all the support I received from my sponsors this year.” “Everyone keeps congratulating me on the great results and I’m happy about third, but still, I wanted first,” Takeshi commented.

The Kawasaki supported Proformance Kawasaki Racing Team experienced highs and lows in their first year of MX2 racing at a national level. Alex Morris exhibited amazing progress to finish the last round in 8th position overall, his highest result of any round in the 2015 series.

Team Manager and dealer principal of WBR Motorcycles, Travis Whitten said, “We worked really hard on Alex’s starts mostly during the week before the last round. He ended up pulling starts in the top 5 and he hung out with the faster guys which was an unreal result for the weekend.”

“Throughout the season we didn’t have the best run with Matt Ryan unable to compete in most of the series due to injury and Dylan Leary stepping back from racing midway through. On top of that we had 5 DNF’s (Did Not Finish) with Alex after some crashes so for him to come away with 15th overall on the championship leaderboard is a real achievement.”

“Aside from that, our goal this year was to establish the team by getting the infrastructure and equipment right and I am so proud of everyone who helped us achieve this. The moral in the team is just as high as it was in the first round.”

Proformance Kawasaki Racing Team are looking forward to preparing for the upcoming Australian Supercross Championship that gets underway on 17th October in Jimboomba, QLD.