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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
TWO of Zimbabwe’s top motocross riders Jayden Ashwell and Regan Wasmuth will have an opportunity of rubbing shoulders with some of South Africa’s top bikers next year when they were unveiled as members of the Yamaha “Dream Team” for that country’s 2016 Monster Energy National Championship season.

On Tuesday night at Waterfall Park in Kyalami just outside Johannesburg, Yamaha launched their 2016 range of motocross bikes and announced their “Dream Team” for the 2016 race season.

The team, officially known as “Vision Racing.Tintswalo.Out of Africa Yamaha”, will include two Zimbabwean champions, namely Ashwell and Wasmuth.

They are captained by the legendary Neville Bradshaw, who has been competing in the British GPs for the past 10 years, and the team also includes some of South Africa’s best young talent, namely Ricky Raaf, Seth Van Den Abele and Travis Goosen.

Zimbabwe’s champion rider Ashwell will be representing the Yamaha “Dream Team” in the Premier MX1 Class while 13-year-old Wasmuth will face off competition in the 125cc High School Class during next year’s Monster Energy South African National Championship Series and both riders have a chance of winning their respective classes in their newly-found support.

Unfortunately, Ashwell missed the launch on Tuesday night due to an injury to his leg sustained in last weekend’s race meeting but there is no doubt he will be back on the bike and ready to represent his new team in 2016.

Young Wasmuth will, meanwhile, now head off to Teza in Richards Bay this weekend for the penultimate round of the 2015 South African National Championship series.

Wasmuth is currently sitting in fifth position in the 125cc High School Class with a good chance of finishing the season in a very respectable fourth place.

This will mean he is the top finisher staying in the class for 2016.

Wasmuth will be joined in Teza by eight-year-old fellow Zimbabwean rider Emmanuel Bako who is looking at wrapping up the 2015 South African National Championship’s 50cc Pro title during this weekend’s race meeting.

Bako has been a ball of fire this season, winning most of his races in the 50cc Pro Class and this saw him sitting pretty at the top of the standings with 211 points going into this weekend’s penultimate round of the 2015 South African National Championship series in Teza.

In fact, Bako is 15 points clear of his nearest rival Wian du Plooy of South Africa and another podium finish in Teza will see him walking away with the title with only one round to go in the seven-round South African National Championship series.

This will see Bako joining the “elite club” of South African National Championship series’ winners which already has his fellow talented young Zimbabwean rider Daiyaan Manuel who won the 50cc Pro title in the same competition last year.

Manuel has since graduated to race in the 65cc Class.

Meanwhile, top Zimbabwean female motocross rider Tanya Muzinda is now expected to return home tomorrow afternoon from Birmingham, England, where she won the 2015 Zimbabwe International Women’s Awards’ Sportswoman of the Year award last Saturday night.

The ZIWA awards were founded in 2013 to celebrate and recognise the unsung heroines in the Zimbabwean community who have made a contribution to the local people through entrepreneurship, education, social welfare, charitable and humanitarian works, entertainment, sport and the arts.

And 11-year-old Muzinda was last Saturday night walking on cloud nine after she was voted as the overall winner of the 2015 ZIWA Sportswoman of the Year award before a full house at the historic council building in central Birmingham.

Muzinda is expected to touch down at Harare International Airport at 5:10pm tomorrow aboard a Fly Emirates plane and according to the manager of Team Tanya, Tendai “T-Buns” Zhakata, they are expecting a rousing welcome for the young motocross rider.