Gareth Swanepoel is excited to race the final five rounds of the 2013 Monster Energy MX Nationals Australia Motocross Championship with Carlton Dry Honda Racing.

The South African, who arrived in Australia earlier today, will make his MX Nationals debut in the MX1 class at this weekend’s round six of the series at Appin in New South Wales.

Swanepoel feels that this Australian deal is a great opportunity for him and having the chance to work with long-time friend Ben Townley once again is an added bonus.

“I am very excited to be joining the Carlton Dry Honda team,” Swanepoel said. “It is a great opportunity for me and the timing could not of worked out better.

“It is also great to be working with Ben again, we have known each other for a long time and were teammates at Vangani Racing in 2001. I spent the past week in New Zealand with him getting accustomed to the Honda.”

Swanepoel has spent time studying clips of Appin’s Bellbird Circuit and believes it will be similar to tracks he raced on while contesting the British Motocross Championship.

“This is my first visit to Australia so I have been doing a lot of watching YouTube clips and from what I can tell the Appin track looks to be quite similar to some of the ones I raced on during the British Motocross Championship,” he added.

Swanepoel will spend the next two days testing in Melbourne before heading to Sydney with the team to make his first professional Motocross appearance on Australian soil.