The Kawasaki Racing Team’s two hot new riders for 2006 have both won their classes at the first round of the Supercross Masters run in Adelaide under lights on Saturday February 11.

Consistently strong through each of their three races on the night, Daniel Reardon won the night in the SX Open class on his new-for-2006 Kawasaki KX450F while Mitchell Hoad took the SX Lites class on the all-new KX250F.

This year (in the outdoor events) the cumulative points for the three races decide the overall winner on the night, who receives eight points toward the championship, with second place overall getting seven and so until eighth scoring a single point.

Queenslander Daniel Reardon, the 2004 SX Lites Champion, has stepped up to the Open class, riding the KX450F. He was very pleased with taking the overall win on the night and also crossing the line first in the last race in front of a big South Australian crowd.
“It was awesome racing, I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of battles with a lot of riders and it was great!

“[The KX450F is] awesome. When I first rode it I sort of didn’t like it – too much power, heavy – but I stuck with it. I nearly decided to ride the [KX250] two-stroke, but I’m really glad I didn’t, the four-stroke is awesome.”

However, like a true champion, he still knows he’s got work to do to win the championship and is already looking forward to the next round in Perth.

“First round’s out of the way. I’ll be stronger and fitter, I’m still not at my peak yet. [My] starts were alright, but weren’t anything special. I think fitness was a big thing though, I was following dudes out there with their tongues out halfway through the moto. I think it really shows who’s been doing the most preparation for the season.”

Mitch Hoad, who was signed up by the Kawasaki Racing Team when they realised this talented youngster hadn’t been signed for a major team late last year, paid back the confidence shown in him by Team Green with a season-opening win.

“I’m stoked, coming out of the first round with a win is always good!”

Hoad had to put in a gutsy effort to take his win in the Pro Lites class, suffering an unlucky crash during practice which knocked him around.

“First two laps of practice, I jumped into some dude, had a little crash, but it wasn’t too bad. But the same jump on the next lap I hit a little kicker and went over the front pretty hard, smashed my body up, got real winded.

“We got the bike back together, just made the second practice and put some good laps in and went from there.”

With multiple podium finishes – including a win in the first championship race – Hoad took the overall win on the night. His final ride of the night saw Hoad behind the eight ball after a collision with another rider left him at the back of the pack, but he put in consistent fast laps and made it back up to sixth, enough to give him the overall.

Team manager Ross McWatters had nothing but praise for the pair. “We’ve had a really good start to the year, we’re extremely happy. We’ve got six weeks to go to the next event, we should be able to hit the ground stronger and more prepared than we were for this race.

“I’ve been wanting to get Daniel Reardon in our team for a couple of years, but that hasn’t been possible until now, but he’s certainly living up to our expectations.

“We had to push really hard to find room in our program for Mitchell Hoad. I couldn’t believe no other factory team had snapped him up. We knew he was on the market at a fairly late stage of last year. We had to do some serious reshuffling to fit him into our plans but he’s paid us back tonight with such a great result.

“The conditions tonight along the starting straight were pretty difficult, you needed the right combination of power and traction. We definitely had the right tyres for the races, but maybe not the starts. We’ll work on the suspension to get more traction. We’d like to thank our major sponsors Fuchs Silkolene and Michelin, plus our other important sponsors NGK, AFAM, Thor, Goodridge, Kincrome and Akrapovic for their ongoing support - we’re pleased with this result and we know we couldn’t have done it without you all.”
Missing from this round was team rider Warren Smart, out with injury.

McWatters explained Smart’s progress.”Warren’s foot injury is looking fairly substantial and he’s going to be looking at 6-8 weeks recovery on that one, which takes him to about the third round of the motocross before he’ll be back to full fitness.”

Also riding for the Kawasaki Racing Team is Toby Price, who qualified for the SX Lites despite a very poor start to his race. In the heats he struggled with unfortunate gate picks which contributed to poor starts. His efforts to recover ground saw him making a few mistakes and suffering some falls. Toby however, knows that he has the talent and the support of the team, he’s looking forward to Perth and a better result.