Australian motocross riders have been claiming impressive results around the world in recent seasons, and on a domestic level it’s hard to look past Cougar Bourbon Honda Thor Racing’s Todd Waters as being the next big thing.

Waters has displayed incredible speed since joining the factory Honda effort in the Pro Open class last season, this year also coming out at the Rockstar Energy MX Nationals even stronger with more experience under his belt.

After leading the series into Toowoomba’s fourth round on 16 May, disaster struck when the 19-year-old from Cairns crashed and suffered a broken collarbone in moto two, urgently undergoing surgery and getting it plated in a bid to return for the next round at Raymond Terrace this weekend.

MotoOnline.com.au gave him a call to see how the injury is coming along.

Todd, first of all, how did the surgery go following your crash at the Toowoomba MX Nationals round?

The surgery went pretty good, it was pretty straightforward because I pretty much just snapped my collarbone in the one place. So yeah, they put two plates on it and said it should be a pretty speedy recovery.

It just upset me a bit, leading the championship and also having a good first race with [Billy] Mackenzie, really putting some more points on the board. So to go from that to two DNFs just cut me a bit, but other than that, it’s all good and I’m regrouping, getting ready for the next round.

We saw Dean Ferris crash in the exact same place into the first corner just a few laps earlier, so what was the deal exactly in your incident?

Well yeah, there was a big kicker there and I guess Dean hit that as well. I also had a flat tyre after my previous crash on the first lap. As it kicked me my tyre rolled off because it was flat, and it spat me pretty hard. That’s what happened with my crash.

So you’ve had the collarbone plated, and plan to be back for Raymond Terrace?

Yeah, I will be back for Raymond Terrace since my doctor said the plate is pretty strong – it just comes down to how much pain I can handle basically. We’ll se how we go with it, but hopefully it should be right. I have a big heart, so we should be okay.

You went into the Queensland round as the red plate holder, but are now 19 points behind defending champion Jay Marmont. Is the title still a possibility at this point?

Definitely, it’s not over – 19 points is just one race. You know, I’ve had bad luck, but other people can have bad luck as well. I’m going to go out and get some points, and then try to get this red plate back. It won’t be at this round, but hopefully by the last one.

You signed with Honda and Yarrive Konsky last year and came out and won the MX Nationals opener before getting injured during the season, but what is it that made you so strong on the 450 from the outset?

Obviously I got injured last year and spent a lot of time off the bike, but I feel that it only made me stronger. It’s just training pretty much, I really dedicated myself this year and have done a lot of hard training. I’ve come out as one of the stronger riders and it definitely shows that I’ve got the strength to ride a 450 out there with Mackenzie and those guys. I can last the 20-minute motos, where Mackenzie seems to fade, so yeah I think my off-bike training is really good and it’s helped me.

How do you feel when people say that you’re the fastest guy in the Pro Open class in 2010? Quite a few believe that you’re even faster than Billy Mackenzie, who has won at a world championship level, once the gates drop.

Yeah, sure. I mean, Marmont used to be one of my favourite riders so to be racing with those guys who were my heroes a couple of years ago is a massive thing. It’s massive to be able to consider myself to be up there on the level that they are on. You know, I’ve put a lot of dedication and time into this, and so have my mum and dad. It’s definitely something that everybody is proud of and hopefully I can be there in the future to come.

You’re from far North Queensland, so what was the riding like up there as a young kid and where do you base yourself during the season?

I’m up here now that I’ve got hurt, spending some time with my friends and family, just sort of regrouping and getting ready for the next round. It’s great up here, good fun, and the racing isn’t as serious.

The competition obviously isn’t as great up here, but we did a lot of travelling as a kid down south. It takes 16 hours just to get to Brisbane, but we did races down in Tasmania, Adelaide and places like that.

It was a great career as a Junior and I was able to win five titles, my family had a lot of fun. Before that we didn’t do a lot of travelling, so we got to see a lot of the country and yeah, just had a ball.

It’s early in the season at this stage, but what are your plans for the immediate future? Do you have the ambition to go overseas?

I definitely do. At the moment I’m trying to organise to head over to the States and maybe do a round of the Nationals, but I need to finish up over here first before I go over fulltime.

I want to have a good year here and then go into Super X, like I haven’t really given myself a chance in Super X. I was able to finish fifth in the Pro Lites title in 2008 in my first ever year of Supercross, but last year I came in halfway through the series and hadn’t even been riding the bike.

At my first round I got an eighth, so I think if I give myself a chance and train for the season like the other guys then I could run right up there with them. I’m definitely looking forward to Super X and finishing off the Nationals as well.

Okay mate, well good luck with the recovery, and we hope to see you come out swinging come Raymond Terrace.

No worries!