While Jack Simpson’s arrival to the top of the MXD podium at Raymond Terrace last week caught many people off-guard, the result didn’t surprise the Victorian contingent who have watched him come through the junior ranks.

The 17-year-old railway labourer from Cranbourne, south of Melbourne has always been a top-three-to-five kid coming through juniors, and after spending a tonne of time training with his fellow Southside crew members Cheyne Boyd and Kade Mosig, Simpson has both the talent and the pace to burn.

When he was 10 years old Simpson met Cam Sinclair, who introduced him to dirt bikes. Soon after Cam encouraged Jack to backflip into the foampit, with the aim of becoming the world’s youngest rider to backflip to dirt. However after one attempt into the foampit, Simpson pulled the pin on his freestyle career and decided to focus on racing.

“It was a bit daunting and I decided it wasn’t where I wanted to go, so I ended up going to Rosebud and doing a few races there, before his dad buckled to the pressure and bought him a KTM 65.

“That was the beginning of the end for my parents lives,” Jack laughs. “From there everything revolved around racing.”

After placing third at the 2008 and 2009 Aussie Junior Nationals, Simpson came out firing at the 2010 titles, but broke his thumb and was forced to sit out the last two finals.

At the 2011 Junior Aussies at Murray Bridge, the outgoing kid came into the meeting with a damaged ACL and a broken wrist that he only got out of plaster two days beforehand. He proceeded to finish third in the first final and placed 4-1 in the two 85cc classes before he popped his weak knee out again, again ruling him out of the biggest event on the junior calendar.

Things went from bad to worse, when two weeks later Simpson hit a boulder at a local race and wrecked his right ACL as well. With the injuries stacking up, he decided to take a full year away from riding and return with a vengeance in 2013.

“I decided to make the most of my time off and bought a Sony camera and a Canon 60D and got right into filming,” Jack explains. “I had a few opportunities to shoot some pro scooter riders and did a few films for Mick Sinclair at Fox. I’ve also got my own video coming out at the end of the week with my story over the past year or so. I filmed most of it myself; it’s nothing too crazy but it’s the story of me being a bit of a battler who trained hard to come back from injury, then brought it home at Raymond Terrace.”

The opening round of the Nationals started with a big crash in practice for Simpson that saw him rip a grip off. He qualified in 13th, and even though he was banged up, he didn’t mind coming into the two 20-minute motos under the radar.

“On the line I thought ‘I’m going to holeshot these bastards’, and that’s what happened. I tired a bit and the bike still wasn’t 100 percent after my stack, but I kept the pace up for 20 minutes and won it. I knew I’d be up there as I’d done a lot of hard work with Mosig and Sam Martin, but I think I still took a lot of people by surprise.”

“My goals were to holeshot both races and pretty much stay in the top three. Even though I won the opening round I’m not getting ahead of myself; we’ve still got seven rounds to go and I’ve got to stay consistent and not have any cartwheels. It’s better to settle for a third than pushing hard for second and crashing your brains out.”

With one of Simpson’s strengths being is ability to hammer the sand and the next MXD round at Wonthaggi being a local race for him, the teenager is pretty confident he can go two from two.

“I can’t wait to get to Wonthaggi. I know that place inside-out and have a pretty good idea of how lines develop there. Next weekend is one of the races that I, my mechanic Mark Sledek and my family are looking forward to the most this season and I’m backing myself there.”