Honda Racing standout Kayd Kingsford completed the double across both the AUSX and ProMX series in 2025, capturing the SX3 championship in Adelaide to complement his MX3 title success earlier this year. It didn’t go all his way, however, with the 17-year-old recounting his supercross season in MotoOnline’s latest Conversation feature.

Image: Foremost Media.

A great season for you in 2025, Kayd, all things considered. It got a bit chaotic after Melbourne, but talk me through Adelaide and whether it’s a feeling of relief to earn the title.

Yeah, obviously Melbourne didn’t go to plan. I had a good points lead entering there, and then came out with a six-point deficit. That leaves a little bit of doubt in your mind during the week. But luckily, we had two races [in Adelaide], two point-scoring races. So I knew I needed to go out there and win, which I set my focus on in Adelaide and executed pretty much from the start of the day. Got out there, [earned] P1 in qualifying, and then clicked off my laps, having a good heat race, which I won. And then I knew I had to get two good starts because it was a tight track and carnage happens behind you, especially when it’s on those smaller sort of tracks, and I really just focused on that. I executed two of those and just rode my race from there, and yeah, ended up SX3 champion.

It was a good thing that it was a double final format – I didn’t think about that. So there were six points on offer if you went 1-1 and Ryder [Malionski] were to finish 2-2, which was the deficit. So was it effectively a must-win situation?

I put myself in a situation where I had to win. With Ryder being such a strong competitor the whole year, I almost expected he was going to be right up there. So it left me with no choice but to go out there and go 1-1. So I set that out as a goal, and I thought about it every day, and then got to the track –achieved a good feel for everything, and then, yeah, just went out there and clicked it off.

It was a really good series. Between you, Ryder, Jack Deveson, as well as Jet Alsop – you were all in with a title shot at the finale. The SX3 championship really turned into a strong campaign with momentum swinging throughout…

Yeah, it was! Brisbane started good for me – I won both of them nights, like two good starts, two good races. So that was good. And then Sydney, that was a fun race with Ryder and whatever. That was a very entertaining race. Obviously, Melbourne got a bit pear-shaped. I had a bad start, got caught up with some riders, had a crash, and all sorts of stuff. So that was pretty average. But the racing all year round, it sort of almost felt like it got better every round and kept people entertained.

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I thought it was interesting with Ryder being drafted into the SX3 class, and pretty good for you because he has a name in the US after his results this year. Talk about him as a competitor, and a bit of that back and forth you had in Sydney.

When someone comes over from the States who’s got a good track record – he won that SMX round this year – hearing that someone like that is coming over, you think, ‘Oh, he’s going to be quick,’ but it only helps us as riders to elevate each other and get better. And yeah, he was a good competitor. Mentally strong, by the looks of it. We didn’t really talk much during the whole series. Yeah, [we had] a little bit of back and forth in Sydney. But I think we made each other a lot better. Every round, there was that kind of championship tension between us. That’s definitely going to help us in the long run with both of our careers.

Melbourne wasn’t an ideal round for you. Can you take me through what happened there?

So, I got off to a bad start, and I worked my way through to a decent position in fourth and just pushed a little bit too hard to try and get to that front pack. Once I went down the first time, it was kind of chaos from there. I was in a bit of a drama with some riders getting cross-jumped and whatnot, but yeah, I lost my hand over the triple before the finish and took the whole impact of my bars to my gut and was winded really badly. So that was all she wrote for that one. But yeah, I just had to put that behind me really quickly and focus on Adelaide. And yeah, it turned out well for us.

This has been a big season for not only you, but your brother as well. Do you feel like this is the most important year of your career to date?

Yeah, I’d say so. I think just showcasing ourselves – not just me but also my brother Ryder – you know, last year we kind of had a name of being quick, but inconsistent. So, for both of us to come out here this year and show not only our consistency but our speed to win races in motocross and supercross and championships, I think this was a massive building year for both of us. I think this year will go down as the year that started something. You know, just a lot of consistency out of both of us, and we’ve both got, you know, I got the motocross and supercross championship, and he got his first supercross championship this weekend, which was great to see. It was awesome to see from a brother’s standpoint, just to see him grow as a rider all year. It was an awesome year for both of us.

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The news is out now that you will be making an MX2 and SX2 transfer with the Honda Racing team next year. Can you speak about that a little bit and stepping up to the professional ranks?

I’ve showcased myself as the top guy this year in MX3 and SX3, and I think, as a rider on a whole, my times this year have been pretty competitive in MX2, especially in some of the AUSX rounds, so I’m looking forward to it. It’s definitely the next step that I need to keep building and to go in there and start racing the big boys. I think it’s only going to help me grow more. It’s going to make me build to a higher level. So I’m expecting myself to be better than what I was this year, next year. Expectation-wise, they’re not going to be extremely high straight up – I don’t want to go out there and say I’m going to win or get a podium straight away and then not have that happen – so expectations haven’t been set yet. We’ll target a good pre-season and definitely try and build some strength as well as speed. We’ll also try and do some pre-season races and then set some expectations from there. But it’s definitely going to be a good year for us and, yeah, I’m excited to be working with the team again. We had a great year this year, so I thought, ‘Why change things?’ We’ll just keep it the same program and go racing in SX2 and MX2.

Lastly, looking forward, from what I’ve heard and what I see with you guys is that you really want to get over to the US. But I wonder, is it hard to balance wanting to go over there and race, but also making sure that it’s the right time to do it?

I think that’s the biggest thing that everyone kind of looks at when they’re trying to go, and that’s finding the right time. And I think that’s where Yarrive Konsky puts on a great program at Honda Racing here. He lets you go over and showcase yourself on a good team and a good platform, and you have the opportunity to learn, fail, and learn from that because you can come back here to his program, which isn’t a setback at all. And as you said, you don’t want to go over too early. With America, it’s almost like you get one good shot at it, and we don’t want to go too early or too late, so we’re just waiting to find that right time. Hopefully, we can get over there and do some more races next year, which is what we’re planning on doing, and showcasing ourselves more, and then just making a plan for the future from there.