Raceline Pirelli Suzuki’s Geran Stapleton has turned more than a few heads over the past 12 months. The 20-year-old from Cape Schanck, Victoria, is rapidly finding his feet in the MX2 class, and makes regular visits into the top five or six.

We caught up with the kid to get his thoughts on a range of topics in this instalment of Fast Thoughts.

Geran Stapleton is a solid fifth place in the MX Nationals MX2 class. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

Getting picked up by Raceline Pirelli Suzuki this year…

At the Appin round of the MX Nationals last year I introduced myself to Raceline Suzuki team owner John Tisdale. When I broke both my arms between Phillip Island and Toowoomba Supercrosses, I drove to Toowoomba with Tim Vare and met up with Chris Tisdale, and talks started from there.

The team has a great atmosphere; I’m proud to be involved with the Tisdale family, who are really nice, genuine people. I feel the team has come a long way since the beginning of the year when Ben Lane took over as team manager. The team is really gelling well now. Ben works his butt off during the week, but on race day we have a lot of fun and have a lot of laughs.

My performance outdoors in 2013…

The MX2 class is pretty tough, but I’m pretty happy with my performance. I didn’t start that well. I hurt my wrist just before the first round while I was at Millsaps Training Facility with Kieran Tisdale. The team sent us both over for three weeks before the first round and it blew my mind. The tracks, the training facility and the whole setup is amazing. We pretty much motoed for three weeks every day, riding with the likes of Joe Savatgy, who’s pretty quick! I never would’ve been able to get over there without the team, so I’m really grateful for the experience.

So yeah, I started the MX Nationals kind of slow, but got a good race result at Wonthaggi, where I finished fourth. My results have been very inconsistent, though. Some rides I’ll be happy with, then I’ll blow the next race with a 17th or an 18th and just letting myself down.

I feel like I turned a bit of a corner at Appin, where I got two results, then I crashed twice in the opening moto at Hervey Bay. My aim is to try and eliminate those bad motos and improve my consistency.

My expectations for Swan Hill…

I’ve only ridden Swan Hill once for the Vic titles. I live five hours away, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to ride there. When I raced there the Vics there it was quite a challenging and technical track. The track layout is pretty flat, but the soil is almost like red brick sand and it ruts up like crazy.

Stapleton is aiming for consistent results in the closing stages of the Motocross championship. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

When I raced at Swan Hill there were ruts everywhere and I loved it. I’m hoping it’s like that on the weekend and I can put my Hervey Bay results behind me and climb up the championship points standings.

Playing the piano…

How did you find out about this? [laughs]. In 2011 I broke my ribs and it took a long time to heal. I got bored and taught myself to play the piano we have at home. I just went on the internet and wrote all the letters and notes down on paper and taught myself that way. I played drums for seven or eight years before that, so I learnt how to read music that way.

I can only play one song on the piano, and Sam Martin was around one day and got a video of me playing and put it on Facebook. It was pretty funny and took a few people by surprise!

The upcoming Supercross Championship…

I think it’s gong to be a tougher series this year, simply because there’s no off-season to get ready. I’m hoping to start Supercross training in a couple of weeks and try and do a bit of ‘double duty’ with Motocross and Supercross for a month or so. No matter what though, I think the first round will be tough with no turnaround.

I like Supercross a lot better than Motocross. Last year I was hoping for a top 10 and exceeded expectations, but I’m not going to put pressure on myself in 2013. If I can get top five finishes I’d be happy with that, but I want to keep the fun in it. If I do that, then I think the results will come.