Last year was somewhat of a breakout season for emerging talent Jack Nunn. He took a dominant win in the first round of the CR22 85cc Cup category in Adelaide’s Australian Supercross Championship (AUSX) opener, before going on to finish second in the series. In January, Nunn and his parents made the trip to the US to race in the AMA Arenacross Amateur Championship, in which he took home the Mini Sr class title, and MotoOnline caught up with the 15-year-old to find out more about his time overseas.

Firstly Jack, congratulations on the Arenacross title. What was that feeling like going to the US and taking the championship on your first try?

Thank you! The opportunity to head over there was amazing. We went over there with the goal of being competitive, so to come home with a championship was awesome. So I’m super-thankful to everyone who helped make it happen.

How did the opportunity come about to get over there?

So we were looking into getting over to America to do some training with [Orange Brigade KTM amateur program team manager] Daniel Blair. He mentioned about the AMA Arenacross Amateur Championship and that he was putting together a little race team. He said it would be cool if we could come over and race and meet him, so thanks to my mum and dad, Daniel and Jake [Posey] from Suspension Solutions, we were able to make it happen and it was completely amazing.

You had a great showing in the AUSX series and you were constantly in the mix for race wins. What would you say were the most noticeable differences between the riders you race against at home in Australia, compared to those in the US?

The AUSX championship was a good way for me to get an insight into racing supercross. But if I had to compare racing at home to racing in America, I’d say the Americans, in my eyes, are a lot more aggressive – they don’t care if they have to put you over a berm for a mid-pack position. I’d say that’s one thing I had to adjust to, just matching that aggression.

Travelling to the other side of the world, how did you find adjusting to the timezone and jet lag, and then obviously going from our Australian summer to the American winter?

I didn’t struggle too badly with the jet lag. I did have to race two days after landing there, so I had to suck it up a bit when I was tired, cause we were racing late into the night. When dad and I landed there, we were fully rugged up and ready for the cold weather, but we got out of the airport wearing t-shirts and shorts, so we were a bit surprised. About two days after our first race, there was a huge cold snap where we were in Texas. I don’t know if we got the worst of it, but it got down to -17 degrees for about a week or so, so that was a huge change getting used to that, but eventually we adjusted to it.

What does the future look like for Jack Nunn?

My future isn’t really set in place yet. I really do want to head back over to America and do some training with Daniel Blair and Jessica Patterson at NXT LVL 101. We also spoke to Matt [Moss] about stepping up to a 125 and getting my feet wet on the bigger bike, but at the same time, we think it’s a good idea to not lose touch of the Supermini or 85, so we’ll probably still do the majority of training and racing on that.