For his second year in a row, 18-year-old Jake Vella is packing his bags and preparing for a lengthy US trip to continue building his motocross career.

Hailing from Kurri Kurri, NSW, Vella spent six months in Murrieta last year battling it out in Loretta Lynn’s qualifiers and the Mammoth Mountain MX. But come January, he plans to take it a step further and move to the Millsaps Training Facility (MTF) in Cairo, Georgia for eight months.

“I think my speed is generally pretty good, but I want to work on my fitness; that’s my weak point and Colleen (Millsaps) is great at building up that aspect in her riders,” Vella explains. “The best thing for me is there won’t be any girls, beaches, mates or parties going on and I’ll be able to focus solely on my racing.”

While Jake has always had a reputation as a bit of a party animal, he says it’s a big misunderstanding and everyone has the wrong impression of him.

“People have the wrong idea about me and think I’m a bad kid, but I’m not,” he divulges. “Obviously I like girls, but the partying isn’t an issue for me. I’ve only been out clubbing one or two times and I’ve never had a puff of a cigarette. It’s not the weakness or the problem that everyone makes it out to be. I’m hoping that this step in moving to MTF will show people how serious I am about my racing and my career.”

With the help of one of his main sponsors, RussTrans Excavations, Vella first headed to the US last year. He based himself at Mike Sleeter’s house in Murrieta, raced the Loretta Lynn’s area qualifiers – including a second in the College Boy class at Washougal – but his visa ran out just before the regional qualifiers kicked off.

Instead, Jake raced the Mammoth Mountain motocross, then jumped on a plane and headed home. With no ride lined up for the upcoming Terex Australian Supercross Championship, Matt Moss encouraged Jake to contact Andrew Hopson at Axis Kawasaki.

After a quick phone call Jake was offered a test ride at Ben George’s supercross track. Despite having never ridden a Kawasaki or at the George’s gnarly supercross track, Jake impressed Hoppo enough to lock in a ride for the four-round series.

“The Axis Kawasaki team has awesome. I only got offered the ride a week before Dubbo, so there was no time to prepare, but the team was so professional. Everyone got along and I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity they gave me. It’s a shame I couldn’t repay them with good results, but I guess it highlighted the need for me to work on my fitness.”

Vella’s eighth overall may not have been the result everyone was hoping for, but it’s given him a bigger injection of enthusiasm and determination to get his racing career back on track. During his eight-month US foray he’ll contest the World Minis, the Winter Ams, the Loretta Lynn’s area and regional qualifiers, the Mini Os and most of the amateur nationals.

“My goal is to qualify for Loretta’s and to finish top 10 at each of the amateur nationals I enter,” he explains. “If I do that I’ll be pumped.”

Vella will return to Australia in August with the intention of picking up a ride for the 2013 Australian Supercross Championship.