After qualifying for his fourth Monster Energy supercross 250SX main event at Toronto on Saturday night, 18-year-old Queenslander Jackson Richardson ripped up the Rogers Centre to a ninth place finish. Look out, USA, another fast Aussie kid is crashing your party.

MotoOnline.com.au caught up with the Cairns-born teenager to see how he’s feeling heading into a well-earned two-week break.

Jackson Richardson joined the list of Australian’s finishing inside the top 10 in an AMA supercross event. Image: Simon Cudby.

First up, Jatz, congrats on a solid performance over the weekend. How does it feel looking back on it?

It was a big accomplishment, even for my own standards. One of the main goals we set ourselves was to gain a top 10 finish at an AMA event this year, so it feels great to pull it off against the guys I’m racing against. The East Coast Championship field is tough and everyone is fast, including the privateers. The top guys are just ridiculous, though, and I’ve learnt so much each week from watching and following those guys around the track.

So far I’ve qualified for four main events, but until this weekend we’ve struggled a bit with our bike set-up. Chad from XPR – who has been looking after my suspension and motors since I was on 60s – made a few big changes and I feel we’re now heading in the right direction and the bike turns a lot better now.

Have you had any moments where you’ve been star-struck lining up against the biggest names in the business?

Yeah, when you roll up to a start-gate with Marvin Musquin, who’s a two-time world champion, and Dean Wilson, it can be a bit daunting. I’ve definitely sat on the line and thought ‘I can’t believe I’m racing against these guys that I’ve been watching for years’. Once you get out there, though, it’s just like a normal race, except everyone is going hell-for-leather!

You’ve got a week off this week. You must be pretty stoked that you don’t have to jump on a plane this weekend.

[laughs] We aren’t lucky enough to fly. We drive everywhere. We’re based at the Millsaps Training Facility at Cairo, Georgia and drive to all the races in an E150 van we bought off Josh Strang.

Wait – so you drove from Georgia to Toronto and back?

Yep, it was 1200 miles each way. We drove for 20 hours to Canada, were there for 20 hours, then drove 20 hours back home. On the way back we stopped by Niagra Falls which was amazing to see, but I swear I’ve never been somewhere so cold in my whole life.

Coming from Cairns, I guess the whole ‘cold’ thing doesn’t go down too well.

Yeah it was ridiculous [laughs]. I like the cold until the point where your fingers get numb, and then I get over it. Dad loves the cold though, so he was in his element.

Richardson is running a full privateer effort in the US, box van and all. Image: Simon Cudby.

Classic. I take it you’re doing the full privateer thing in the US and aren’t getting a lot of support.

Yeah we’re pretty much doing everything off our own bat. We’ve got a few people helping us out like Chad from XPR, Lusty Industries are providing us with goggles and gear, and Dave from Mongrel Custom Motos looks after my graphics kits. Apart from that, we’re doing it all the hard way. The van has a bed in the back, so me and Dad switch driving duties when one of us gets tired. It works out well.

You mentioned earlier you’re staying at MTF. How’s that been going?

Awesome. It’s my first year here and can’t say enough good things about it. I didn’t really know what to expect, but Colleen [Millsaps] is really nice and I’ve learnt a lot from her. It’s funny because me, Kyle Peters and Gavin Faith are all living here and pushing each other, and it seems we find each other out on the race track too. Taylor Potter is also here and it’s good to have another Aussie to hang out with.

So have you moved to the US permanently?

No, we’re just on a visitor’s visa at the moment. We arrived a week before Dallas and have lived at MTF since then. We’ve got Texas next weekend, then I hope to ride and train there before we drive to Minneapolis. After that we drive back to California and catch the big bird back to Australia as our three-month visa runs out. Hopefully we can sort out our visas and return in time for the final round of the supercross in Vegas, then race the outdoor series.

What are your plans for 2014 then?

The aim is to come back here, step my game up and improve my results with everything that I’ve learnt. I’ve learnt so much about racing over the past two months and I’m sure I’ll learn more in the next couple of weeks as well. I’m excited about next year already; this has definitely been a fun trip and one I’ll never forget.

Perfect, thanks for the chat, Jackson. Enjoy your week off.

Thanks man, speak to you soon.