“Fast” Freddie Noren is not only one of the nicest human beings in motocross, but he’s also quite possibly one of the nicest in the entire World. When the World Supercross Championship kicked off a week and a half ago in Cardiff, Wales, Noren took his PMG Suzuki to an 11th overall in the WSX class. It was a respectable finish for the rider originally out of Sweden.The PMG team first reached out to Noren to ride for them at Pala, the series finale to the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. Noren had prior engagements scheduled like visiting his family at home in Sweden (he hadn’t been home to Sweden in four years), and racing the MXoN at RedBud. Straight off of RedBud, Noren flew to Fresno, CA to meet with the team and he had four days on the bike to get ready for the race. Noren said that those four days were great, however he was getting used to the bike as well as getting back in the groove of riding supercross again. With less than a week on the bike, Noren and the PMG Suzuki team flew into Wales to race the British GP. Noren said that he initially didn’t know what to expect going into the new Championship, but he was pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome he felt from the fans.

“There were a ton of people there, we had some signing sessions, and it was really neat to see the excitement from all of the fans there,” Noren said.

Noren also said that it was also a great experience to participate in opening ceremonies as he has never had that opportunity in the States and the WSX promoters gave him a Swedish flag to hold, which he was not expecting.

Not knowing what to expect from the event, or having much expectations for the racing format, Freddie put in consistent 13-9-11 finishes in the three main events netting him 30 points on the night. .

“I started off the day not being very aggressive,” Noren admitted. “It did get better during the main events and I had good starts. I had somewhat of a bad gate pick. I wasn’t as aggressive as I usually would be, but I probably will be as I ride more supercross. I was happy with 11th considering that I didn’t have much time, but moving forward I will be expecting more out of myself. I feel like I should be in the top eight and I should be happy.

Noren said that as he gets older he’s finding himself feeling more comfortable on a supercross track. In Sweden he didn’t have the chance to ride anything close to a supercross track growing up and getting a late start on that genre of racing was a tough learning curve.

“I’d never even seen a supercross track until I came to America and watched a race,” Noren recalled. “The more I race it each year it gets easier to ride. It’s always hard to go fast obviously, but as far as going through the motions on the supercross track it gets easier as you gain more experience.”

Coming up this weekend (October 21-22) is the Australian GP of the World Supercross Championship and the final round of the ‘soft opening” of WSX. Freddie said that he has never been to Australia and he’s looking forward to going somewhere new to race. In preparation for racing in Australia, Noren worked on his intensity and his starts (since those come in handy in the short races). Noren did say that he was also going to try some different suspension components leading up to the race and that his goal on race day is to eliminate his mistakes.

As far as other goals heading into Australia, Freddie did have some important things to accomplish while he was there.

“I really want to see a kangaroo, that's one of my goals and not one in a zoo,” Noren said. “I want to see one in the wild, so I’m excited to go there and I think it’ll be a lot of fun!”