Source: Supplied.

Highly-rated Taree racer Josh Hook has revealed he is unlikely to secure a ride in the lead-up to 2017 season, however he’s determined to revive his career following a frustrating 2016 campaign.

The 24-year-old, who starred on his way to second at the Suzuka 8 Hours in 2015, completed a partial season in the Superbike World Championship with Grillini Kawasaki last year before being dropped and ended the season in Britain with Team WD-40.

A lack of finances and little reward for his efforts have forced Hook to forego any options presented in the current silly season, but he refuses to give up on a career racing professionally just yet. Waiting for a fill-in position could be the key in reestablishing himself either locally or overseas.

“At this stage I haven’t really got any plans,” Hook told CycleOnline.com.au ahead of this weekend’s Motul Pirelli Troy Bayliss Classic, where he will once again line up in front of a home crowd. “I had plenty of offers towards the end of last year and everyone we spoke to didn’t have a budget to run me for the year.

“Team WD-40 are a great bunch of guys and a good team in BSB, they’ve had to cut down to one Superbike. The offer was there, but they said they didn’t have a budget to put me on a wage, so I said I can’t do it. For me, living overseas away from home and not being able to earn money between races just wasn’t possible. They tried and tried, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“Since then we’ve had a few options in different championships, but it’s the same – nobody has the budget to put you on or they want you to bring money. It’s come to a point in time in my career where I can’t do that. Stepping into WorldSBK last year on a team that’s not good by any means didn’t do my career any good whatsoever, so at this stage I think I have to start from scratch.

“I’m obviously interested in racing in any championship, there’s no doubt about that, but until I can get a wage racing a motorcycle, I won’t be riding. The last thing I want to do is go out and get a ‘real’ job, but at the moment I haven’t got a choice, being stuck sitting on the bench. Maybe I could fill-in or something might come up later.”

Hook has no regrets for leaving the comforts of a factory ride with Team Honda Racing in Australia at the end of 2014 in a bid to make the jump to Europe via a TSR Honda ride in Japan, despite the difficulties he has encountered trying to source a strong seat in the world championship.

“In Japan I was racing for the factory Honda team in 2015, which was the best thing that ever could have happened to me,” Hook explained. “It all started from racing for Honda here and then moving over to Japan for the factory, so I will never regret that. To be fair, I should have stayed there and I had the option to, but at that point I had the Moto2 thing come up and that’s where I wanted to be.

“Filling in for Dominique Aegerter at Technomag Racing Interwetten was a perfect opportunity at the end of that year. The team was really happy with how I went and they offered me a deal for 2016, but come January they pulled the pin because they couldn’t find the budget. I was left with no ride, because I would’ve loved to stay in Japan, but they’d found a rider to replace me when I left. It’s easy to say ‘you probably shouldn’t have done that’, but you have to give it a crack.

“I know for the future not to ever go over to Europe on the wrong team, because you go into it with a positive attitude and you convince yourself you can turn it into something worth doing, but I definitely couldn’t. I’ve learnt that and a lot of things from that mistake in itself – I definitely regret going [to WorldSBK], but it’s all said and done for now. I’ll just keep chipping away until something comes up and go from there.”