TM Racing Australia is on track for a return to National level racing at round five of the 2013 Monster Energy Motocross championships being held at Conondale in the teams home state of Queensland on the 2nd of June.

Disaster struck the newly formed team at the opening round of the MX Nationals at Raymond Terrace in mid April when their MX1 rider Simon Thompson and the teams MX2 rider, Ryan Ziepes both succumbed to injury.

Thompson who re-­‐aggravated a back injury that continued to get progressively worse after the opening moto of the season, is on the road to recovery after successful back surgery and is at a point where he can take a few small steps on his own as he regains full movement in his legs.

At this point in time Thompson will take the remainder of the 2013 season off to fully recover with the aim of returning to racing stronger than ever at the beginning of the 2014 season.

For Ziepes, he has spent the past month and a half having scans on his knees to determine the full extent of his injuries. In some bitter sweet news for the young racer, the doctors have told him that there is no damage as such to his knee, but instead an advanced arthritis which is causing both the pain in his knee and causing it to dislocate.

Ryan has returned to riding in the past couple of weeks and has made the decision to switch from the TM 250 two stroke to the TM MX 250Fi in an attempt to put less pressure on his legs while racing.

“I will be returning for Conondale,” Ziepes stated. “I have had a heap of scans and stuff done on my leg and the outcome was that I have advanced arthritis in my knee and also a bone disease which is causing my knee to dislocate and play up.

“There is nothing they can do to fix the problem at this stage and I just have to push threw the pain and dramas that come with it and keep a positive look.

“I have decided to step onto a 250F so that it is a bit easier on my body rather then my two stroke.

“I am really looking forward to getting back out there in just over two weeks time and mixing it with the boys again.” he added.

Joining Ziepes at the Conondale round will be Nyk Geck, who will also line up in the MX2 class aboard a 250F. Geck is no stranger to the TM brand racing a TM MX 450Fi in the Australian Supercross Championship last year and also competing aboard a TM 250Fi during the 2011 SuperX championship.

With little riding under his belt there is no pressure on Geck heading in to the Conondale round,with team owner and manager Andrew Franklin looking forward to having Geck get some solid race time under his belt in the lead up to the 2013 Australian Supercross Championship where he will contest the series in the Pro Lites class.

“Nyk will be joining the team at Conondale,” Franklin explained. “He only got back in to riding and training a few weeks ago and is coming on very well.

“At round three of the Sunny states he was running around just inside the top twenty, then last weekend at Leyburn Park at round four he showed great improvement running inside the top ten and finishing 9th in the Pro Lites class.

“There is no pressure on him at Conondale, he is there to get some quality race time, and build towards the Supercross championship. In saying that hopefully he can push towards some top ten results by the and of the MX Nationals.” Franklin concluded.