What about some of the other Nitro
Circus characters?
Not quite as dramatic but equally
as impressive is Dusty Wygle. He is
a professional land boogie boarder
in Nitro Circus but found that he
was the only one of us that was
able to do Lawn Dart Frontflips on
a full size motorcycle. He needed to
go about 85 feet in distance to get
his trick to work, but he had never
jumped anything that big in his life!
So without ever hitting the ramp at
that distance, Dusty took his boogie
board, mountain bike and big wheel
skills, put them together and decided
they would be enough to get the job
done! To make things even scarier
for the poor guy, I decided to try my
first Frontflip to dirt at the same time
- side by side. Go right and miss the
landing, go left and take us both out.
Go long and over-rotate to your face,
go short and… Well, Dusty went a
little short and broke his ankle but he
rode out of it and became the first
rider in history to Lawn Dart Frontflip
a full size dirt bike.
Talk about your Red Bull airbag
landing?
Bringing back some of the excitement
was only part of my goal for Action
Figures. I wanted to make the sport
safer. Sure we were building 40-foot
tall take offs and getting nearly 90
feet off the ground, trying Triple Flips
and Double-Cork 1080s, but the
BAGJUMP landings have kept us
alive. Danger is and always will be
a part of the sports we love, but it’s
my job as someone with the ability
to help shape its future to make
sure that we go about it as safe as
possible.
So the well-being of everyone is
clearly important to you?
I know it sounds strange coming
from me, but think about this: Nitro
Circus is doing more than seventy
live shows this year. We have fifty
athletes pushing themselves to the
limit in every show and I don’t want
to have to watch a single one of my
friends get hauled off on a stretcher.
There isn’t a simple solution and
it’s always a work in progress, but
the BAGJUMP’s are getting better
every day. This year was a huge
step forward and we are trying
to implement everything we have
learned into future shows and training
facilities.
60 | FreestyleXtreme.com
Seemingly everyone had just as
much enthusiasm to do it for the
love of the game as you did?
Filming Action Figures made it
more apparent to me than ever the
character traits that are common in
almost anyone who makes it to the
top of their sport. This film wasn’t
a big-budget film, where we got to
just sit back and watch things get
done for us. When we needed a ramp
moved, a landing built or a foam pit
fluffed, we did it ourselves. It was
awesome working with athletes
that never had to be asked to help.
Thomas Pagès and Josh Sheehan are
two of the best equipment operators
I’ve ever met. Excavators, loaders,
dozers, skidsteers and cranes, those
guys had obviously spent countless
hours in all of them. Truth is, you
would be hard-pressed to find a top
motocross racer who doesn’t know
how to run his own machinery.
On the BMX side, the ramps were
ever-changing. We found that BMX
bikes lose speed as they climb. Ok,
this is common sense but what we
figured out was that an elliptical,
decreasing radius starting around
ten feet from the bottom would make
the ramp feel consistent and help
give the BMX riders more ‘pop’. This
was a way to compensate for the
loss of speed without losing spin.
Unfortunately, we made the top radius
too tight at first and some riders
couldn’t handle the compression.
This resulted in huge crashes and
a few people that didn’t make it to
the bag. My point however is not
the science behind the ramps, but
the fact that James Foster and Jed
Mildon both helped weld their own.
Heck, when the moto guys were all
building James’s landing, he went to
the hardware store on his own dime
to buy paint for the wood roll-in and
take-off ramp so it would last the
winter.
I guess my point is that I feel so
many people just want to be handed
opportunities and get paid for their
time. It was an amazing feeling
working with a crew who were
truly passionate about the project.
Everyone in Action Figures did it for
free. Most of them paid their own
way and they all worked their asses
off. Why? Because they saw an
opportunity to elevate themselves,
as well as their sports. We went u