Tye Simmonds had a massive task ahead of him in 2011 as a rookie in the 450 Class of the Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, and the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championship.

At just 19 years of age, riding an underpowered 350 SX-F for the JDR/J-Star/KTM team, Simmonds held his head high alongside the likes of dual champion Ryan Villopoto, Ryan Dungey and countryman Chad Reed.

Once all was said and done, Simmonds netted himself 23rd overall in Supercross and 17th in the outdoors, racing alongside some very fast company including experienced Queenslander Michael Byrne on any given weekend.

MotoOnline.com.au spoke to Simmonds following Pala’s season finale to see how he rates his season, and what we can expect from him for the upcoming 2012 season.

Your first full season of Supercross and Motocross is in the books, so give us a wrap up of how it all panned out for you? It must have been a really good experience and a big learning year…

Yeah, it has. This year’s just been awesome, just how much I’ve learnt and how much I’ve come forward in my riding, as well as off the bike. I’ve grown out of being a kid, bought a house, cars, handling a bit of many and so on. This year’s been really big for me, I’ve learnt so much. Nathan Ramsey has helped me a whole lot, so has my mechanic Craig Behl.

Like I said, my riding has come forward so much just because there are so many good guys out here to practice with. At the races the level of intencity is ridiculous and they hold that the whole moto, so things have definitely come a lot way this year, that’s for sure.

What’s been the biggest difference to you, as far as the actual racing goes compared to Australia?

Well, you know, it was a combination of things. I was on the 350 this year and I’ve never been an erratic rider, but being a little bit down on power I had to change my style of riding a little bit. I’m normally pretty smooth, so that changed and I’m a little bit more erratic on the bike.

I’ve never really liked to rev bikes, but this year I’ve had it on the limiter all year and it’s been good. Fitness-wise I’ve come a long way as well, and I showed today I can pump out 35s and do them pretty comfortably. This year’s been awesome for me.

Today you didn’t finish moto one, but you took a solid 11th in moto two, so how was Pala for you?

It was good. You know, this is like my home track, so I was really looking forward to that. I slept in my own bed, just 20 minutes down the road and we were here.

I was a little bit bummed about the first moto, but we had a few little issues with the bike and I was a little worried. I pulled in just in case something went wrong bad.

Then in the second moto 11th was good, I finally got a decent start, which is what I’ve been chasing all of motocross. I finally got one of them and put together a good 35.

How about the future, do you have any idea what’s coming up for you?

Nah, no idea. I’ll have an idea what’s coming up in the next month of so and we’ll keep you posted for sure. Another month or two and we should know what we’re up to.

But you’d like to stay in America though if the opportunity is there?

Yeah, definitely. I think I’d be silly if I went home – I’d be going backwards. It would be great with family and friends, stuff like that, but riding-wise I don’t have anyone to train with back home and the track’s aren’t as good as here.

The competition is just gnarly here and first through 30th is just very fast. We’ll just wait and see where we go.

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