FIVE AUSTRALIANS AND A NEW ZEALANDER TO COMPETE AS WILDCARDS IN SEPTEMBER’S MXGP OF CHINA

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The 16th September round of the 2024 FIM Motocross World Championship in China will be strengthened by the presence of six wildcards from the Australian ProMX ranks.

Words: Infront Moto Racing, Images: Foremost Media

Six riders have accepted the challenge to compete in the Shanghai-based event – Nathan Crawford (KTM), Todd Waters (Husqvarna), Kirk Gibbs (GASGAS), Brodie Connolly (Honda), Jayce Cosford (Yamaha) and Byron Dennis (GASGAS) – as the championship returns to the world’s second most populous nation for the first time since 2019 and just a year before MXGP comes back to Australia.

The riders will participate in the classes that align with their ProMX campaigns, which means that MXGP trio Crawford, Gibbs and Waters – who currently fill positions 3-4-5 – will tough it out in the MXGP category and the remainder in the MX2 class.

The MXGP of China will be number 19 of 20 in a huge 2024 calendar, with the season ending in Spain at Cózar on September 29.

And then, in 2025, the frenzy and adrenalin-fuelled excitement of MXGP returns Down Under for the first time in 24 years. The MXGP of Australia in Darwin will be held in September 2025 and promoted by the Northern Territory Major Events Company, featuring the MXGP and MX2 classes as well as the FIM Women’s Motocross World Championship and a national support class.

The 2025 MXGP calendar will be announced later this year.

Todd Waters will dip his toes back into MXGP’s hot waters in China.

For the Aussies, the MXGP of China will certainly provide a taste of the intensity and degree of difficulty required to make an impact at the world championship level, with big names such as Tim Gajser, Jorge Prado, Jeffrey Herlings and Kay de Wolf awaiting them on the 1.620km Shanghai track.

Gajser is leading the MXGP Championship hoping for a fifth World title, and 19-year-old de Wolf has a handy buffer in the MX2 class with six rounds remaining, although his challengers remain motivated to close the gap.

Of the six Aussies heading to China, former Motocross of Nations representatives Waters and Gibbs are the only ones with previous MXGP experience. Waters was ninth in the 2015 championship and, after winning the ProMX title in 2015, Gibbs then joined Waters at the season-ending MXGP round in America.

Peter Doyle, CEO, Motorcycling Australia:

“This is a great opportunity for the riders compete on the international stage, in an FIM World Championship where so many Australians have performed with distinction in the past.

It’s certainly going to be a baptism of fire for the younger riders against seasoned MXGP competitors, but that’s what sport is all about: pushing yourself to the limit and taking on new challenges.

The MXGP of China project will be a stepping stone as we build towards the MXGP of Australia in 2025.”