After a dominant performance at the opening Round of the Nokia MX Nationals last weekend in Victoria, Kawasaki Racing Team pilots Daniel Reardon, Mitch Hoad and Cody Mackie are again preparing to shake up the competition, this time in the sleepy town of Penguin in Tasmania.
Round Two of the Championship kicks off this Sunday 22 April, in front of what is expected to be a large and enthusiastic crowd of Australian Motocross supporters.
With Championship and race winning momentum fuelling the Team on, all three Kawasaki Racint Team riders have spent the week hard in training, preparing for what they believe will be the Team's most successful year ever in racing.
After clean sweeping the Pro Open Class at the opening Round, Pro Open rider Daniel Reardon headed straight back to his home state of Queensland where he and his personal mechanic Mike Ward, have worked on fine tuning his KX450F's race set-up to best suit the clay Penguin track conditions.
"It has been a couple of years since we raced at this track, but based on past racing experience there, we are making a few set-up changes to my KX450F," said Reardon. "If the weather is damp, the clay Penguin track can get really heavy, so Mike (Ward) and I have been working on fine tuning my suspension and tyre set-up for this weekend."
After a weekend of eventful racing, both Pro Lites pilots Mitch Hoad and Cody Mackie headed to Albury accompanied by KRT technicians Charlie Costanzo and Marty Blake, for an intense two days of testing.
With both riders and technicians utilising the quality testing time together, the Pro Lites Team made adjustments to both KX250F's race set-ups and further tested performance parts on the race winning bike.
"I was pretty happy with my KX250F's opening Round performance," said Hoad. "There was a couple of different set-up options that I wanted to explore, so having a couple of days with the Team was really valuable for me. It just gave us a chance to test any thoughts and ideas and I feel confident heading into this weekend's event."
Mackie believes the two days gave him a good opportunity to spend quality time with his new team mate Mitch Hoad and he was able to develop a better understanding and relationship with the Race Engineers.
"It was good to spend two full days testing my KX250F with the Team," said Mackie. "It was valuable to have Dan's engineer, Charlie Costanzo supporting us, sharing his thoughts and experience on race set-up. I have been hitting my home track a lot over the past weeks, but it was great to just spend quality time with the Team away from the track."
KRT Team Manager Brett Whale is looking forward to what he believes will be a weekend of great results for Kawasaki.
"All the guys are in great competitive form and I am confident there will be an even greener presence than Round One on the podium this weekend."
"It is always a thrill for the Team to watch Dan ride in the Open Class with such confidence and dominance, but we have two great riders in Mitch and Cody which I am particularly excited about watching in the Lites Class."
"They spent a lot of time and energy this week developing their race strategies, so I am looking forward to seeing them pull off some intense and creative racing this weekend."
