New South Welshman Aaron Tanti has just come off a stellar six-round stint in the 250SX West class of Monster Energy Supercross, where earned a season-best result of ninth to position himself 14th in the championship standings.

Image: Octopi Media.

You’re back in Australia now after doing the first six rounds of Monster Energy Supercross in the 250SX West class, how was that experience?

It was an awesome experience to get over there and compete with those guys, as well as ride and train with the Star boys. It was a pretty cool experience – I ticked off a few goals of my own. I came over and got a top 10 in AMA, which is pretty sick.

Was the goal to break into the top 10?

Yeah, I didn’t really go over with a huge goal, I just wanted to do my thing. I couldn’t really set a goal because I didn’t know what it was going to be like, but obviously I set my expectations pretty high because I want to be up there. I could’ve done better with a bit more time, so that’s how that went down.

You seemed to have a bit of support through Yoshimura, and obviously the Serco guys were over there with you. What was the actual structure of your set-up like?

The main thing was Serco allowed me to use my Australian bike, so we sent over my two race bikes that I used here for supercross. Gavin let me take my mechanic Ben, and through Yoshimura – we use Yoshimura in Australia – they let us use their Sprinter van and quick shades, which was awesome going to the races. My main sponsor was Complete Parts – they funded the trip and got me over there.

Was most of your riding at the Yamaha test track?

Yeah, majority of my riding was at the Yamaha test track after new years – I think we got to go on there the week before Anaheim 1, and we pretty much went back there every week after that. It was pretty cool.

Image: Octopi Media.

Looking back, you qualified for five out of the six finals…

Yeah I missed out at Anaheim 1 – I crashed in the heat race and crashed in the LCQ – that was a bummer.

There was a lot of Australian support behind you, did you pick up on that over there?

100 percent – it was awesome! I got lots of awesome and nice comments and messages. I could definitely feel the love over there. At most of the rounds, there would be Australians that would come up in the pits to find us, so that was pretty cool. It was pretty awesome – we were getting a fair bit of love over there.

It was a massive experience, but can you pinpoint one aspect that was your favourite thing about the trip?

I really enjoyed the consecutive racing – week in, week out – and the atmosphere was so awesome. They put on a really good show, and it’s just like the AUS-X Open every weekend, but better with more people.

Looking forward, you’re back with Serco for the MX Nationals this year. Is it time to switch over to motocross and start preparing?

Yeah, 100 percent. I got back yesterday morning and I’ll probably have a week off. I probably don’t have a bike ready yet because Benny’s been over in the States the whole time with me. I haven’t stopped since last year, so I’ll have a week off – I don’t think the weather is permitting me to ride anyway, the rain just keeps on coming down at the moment. But yeah, straight into motocross now.