No Fear?

NO FEAR?

RACE WATCH

Showtime for Xtreme athletes at the first-ever Supercross Crossover

PAUL SEREDYNSKI

WHAT'S WITH KIDS THESE DAYS? IT SEEMS ANY activity that can't get you seriously broken or dead hardly rates as a potential pastime. 'Course, it is hard to blame anyone for shunning strike-prone, prima donna-populated stick-and-ball sports. What we've got is a less team-oriented generation, one that sees more appeal in being swallowed in a tsunami's curl or falling down a mountainside strapped to a board or bicycle. As motorcyclists, of course, we can relate.

After all, racing motorcycles is the original and ultimate Xtreme sport, practiced well before the term even existed. To prove the point, and to promote their 25th year in Super-

cross, the folks at PACE Motorsports asked an impressive coterie of XGames types if they’d like to sample some berm shots and triple-jumps at an event dubbed the Supercross Crossover.

“I’ve been claiming for a while that Supercross is the reigning king of Xtreme sports,” explained Pat Schutte, PACE PR man. “So, let’s bring these guys out here. Let them have at it on our track and see what they think.”

The X athletes wouldn’t just swap hats anywhere, however, they would land on Supercross’ ancestral > ground: Anaheim Stadium, the "Big A." Prepped for 1999's SX opener, what's now known as Edison Field contained a full-blown, under-thelights, go-for-broke track designed to challenge the world's finest Super cross riders. Imagine whoops and trenches to make a Showa engineer weep; launch pads so steep they in duce vertigo; tabletops high enough to rappel off.

Of course, among groups allowed to freely roam the streets, Xtreme athletes probably would be your best bet not to pitch the invite into the trash or laugh out loud at the beckon ing. The 20-odd souls who showed up at Anaheim were all world-class prac titioners of their alternative mediums (everything from BMX to wakeI boarding). Cycle World hounded five throughout their play day at Anaheim.

The Crossover took place Friday evening following Pro practice, under the same stadium lights that bathed the factory riders Saturday night. For those who didn’t bring their own, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha donated MX bikes (a Kawasaki spokesperson, who wished to remain anonymous, quipped, “They should provide a bodybag with each bike.”). Early Friday, along with CWs resident Xtremer, Off-Road Editor Jimmy Lewis, I trolled Anaheim’s parkinglot-turned-paddock in search of our Fab Five.

Brian Lopes, mountain-bike racer for the Volvo/Cannondale team, was already deep into conversation with friends in the pits. (“I got this e-mail, and I was like, ‘Wow, my name’s on the list? Coo//’”) Lopes brought his own bike, a Yamaha YZ250. “I was hoping to have a Cannondale, but they didn’t have one ready,” he explained. “Maybe next year.”

Lopes would get to ride on the same track as Jeremy McGrath, not a

first, as the two come from the same background. “I’m friends with McGrath because we used to race BMX together,” he said. Lopes ran his first BMX race before he was 5, got his first motorcycle when he was 13, and started mountain biking six years ago. “I’ve been riding motorcycles for maybe four or five years, during the bicycle-racing off-season. It gets you comfortable with the speed and the different types of terrain, and it’s a good workout.”

We approached surfer Sunny Garcia as he stood in the catering line. Asked for a brief bio, the world-class wave-rider deftly condensed his surf/moto career: “I grew up on the west side of Oahu, and started surfing when I was 7. I started riding dirtbikes in 1991. In 1993, I met Doug Henry and Jeremy and all those guys. I went riding with Doug; he wouldn’t let me off the track until I did this tabletop. I used to ride trials before that, but about four months ago I built an MX track, so now I ride almost every day.”

The affable and startlingly fit Gar-

cia was perhaps the most well-known athlete invited to the Crossover, and will work with Honda’s PR folk in ’99 at other motocross events-he’s even emblazoned a surfboard with Honda’s “Wing” logo. He owns a new CR, but didn’t cart it from Hawaii. “For me, it’s a good cross-training program. I probably ride my bike more than I surf, although I shouldn’t be saying that,” he grinned.

Asked how he felt about riding Supercross, Garcia offered this nugget:

“I just surfed Waimea three days ago, with 25-foot waves, which is really big. But I’d much rather take a big wave on the head than come up short on a triple.”

Jeff Emig, 1997 Supercross champ and sometime surfer, strolled by toward the end of the conversation and joined in. Asked if he’d hit the same waves Garcia does, Emig gave an emphatic, “No,” shaking his head. “You can die surfing. Supercross is different, if you want to stop, you can just stop right there. The ocean is moving, it’s alive. It has no mercy.”

We caught up with MXer-turned> mountain-biker Mercedes Gonzalez, currently sponsored by GT Bicycles. The former Kawasaki racer was on familiar ground, but like everyone else was enthralled by the altitude the AMA stars gained off the triples as practice wound down. "I was honored to be invited, because I'm the only woman here," she said. "They know I come from a motocross background,

but I haven’t been on a Supercross track since ’89-90.”

So many Xtreme athletes cut their teeth on motorcycles, this Crossover is almost a homecoming. Said Gonzalez, “The technical skills you acquire on a motorcycle totally help your mountain biking-picking lines, looking ahead, perceiving speed. From motocross the transformation was so natural, all I had to learn was how to handle a bicycle...its lightness, its suspension limitations. But if you took some of these Supercross guys to some of our downhill courses, they’d say, ‘You’re nuts!’”

TJ Lavin, a BMX dirt-jumper with the Specialized/Mountain Dew team, grew up on motorcycles. “I was super-stoked when they called me. ‘Are you serious, we get to ride Anaheim Stadium?!’ Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to ride a big Supercross track. This is the craziest sport there is...this and rodeo.”

Tommy Bonacci, also a former motocrosser, took to the water nine years ago to race personal watercraft. “I ride motocross twice a month at the local tracks, but those jumps are not as peaked as these, and the landings are more forgiving,” he said, pointing to the practicing Pros who were somehow making a turn around home plate after completing a series of doubles and triples along Anaheim’s first-base line. “These guys are some of the most talented, physically fit athletes around.”

With the sun diving toward the nearby Pacific, and regular practice over, the Crossover athletes were broken into two groups and let out on the track.

“I think it’s pretty cool to see all these guys out here,” Yamaha rider John Dowd said while watching the practice from the staging area. “I’ve tried a few of their sports, so I understand how hard it is to go out of your element. The bottom line is, they’re all a bunch of good athletes. You’ve got to be, to be at the top of any sport.”

“It’s a lot harder than it looks!” mountain biker Lopes exclaimed, taking a break from his session. “It’s fun, but super hard. There are big, humongous trenches in front of some of the jumps. I don’t know how those guys do it!”

Garcia the surfer was looking pretty somber after his first taste of a professional Supercross track. “I was as scared as can be before I got out there,” he said. “Now I’m even more scared! I can’t even get through the potholes, never mind up and over the jumps.”

Jet-skier Bonacci was grinning like a crazy man. “Feel my arms!” he exclaimed, offering a limb that felt like an oak prosthetic. “Hard like a porn star!”

After two practice sessions, the whole group headed to the starting gate for a “friendly” five-lap mock race. Hollywood stuntman David Barrett (an avid motocrosser) crossed the finish line first, looking like he was ready to qualify for Saturday’s main event.

After the race, a winded Garcia offered, “I’ve always had the highest regard for Jeremy and Doug and all those guys. I couldn’t have imagined having any more respect.”

“It’s just a privilege to ride the track and know what it’s like,” Gonzalez said. “I’ll have to call up Jeremy or Jeff and see if they’ll let me ride their tracks, get a little practice.”

“There’s probably three or four jumps on this track I wasn’t doing that > I’d do on my mountain bike, no problem,” Lopes figured.

“I didn’t want anything to do with those triples,” Bonacci countered.

“My brains are bigger than my balls.” PR manager Schutte summed things up: “These are all phenomenal athletes, and I take my hat off to them

for coming out and doing this. This is the big leagues, surfing the Pipeline, dropping off some massive cliff, all wrapped up in one.”

So, is Supercross the most extreme Xtreme sport? Does motorcycling breed Xtreme athletes? Thumbs-up on both counts. Now, if we can just get freeriding included in the next X-Games...