Text: Aljosa Jerman Blazic
Photo: Simon Pukl | Lukson.com
A 60 meter wide bullfighting arena, 3.360 tons of packed gravel, five take-off and one landing ramp and 10 world-class freestyle motocross riders is what it takes to drive 23.000 fans to ecstasy. That's Redbull XFighters showdown – the most prestigious FMX event, where motorbike acrobatics meet up with bullfighting. Literally.
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Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas – the largest and most important among 400 bullfighting arenas in Spain.
The arena was constructed by architect Jose Espelia and opened its doors back in 1931. During the season arena shows bullfights on a daily basis. Once a year only instead of bulls, Motoreros - as they are called for the RedBull XFighters event, get the chance to enter the arena catapulting themselves and their 250cc machines off the ramps performing tricks that defy gravity and drive the fans to ecstasy. The invitees represent the absolute creme de la creme of FMX from four continents – Europe, Australia, Japan and USA.
Motoreros do their last minute practice during the training day. To watch a high-powered line-up and an action-packed program on the evening of showdown, 23.000 enthusiastic fans will fill-up and hot-up the arena seats which are completely sold out weeks before the event.At RedBull XFighters FMX superstars beat gravity. The tricks do not only sound spectacular... every year more and more unthinkable tricks are invented and demonstrated to the public for the first time. What sounded impossible only a year ago is now a standard item on every rider’s trick list.
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Twenty-three year old Travis Pastrana, a.k.a. Wunderkind, giving an interview at the backstage of Plaza De Toros arena during the training session. Travis recently won Summer XGames in U.S., where he pulled the first double backflip in the history of FMX. Although many consider double backflip as one of the most dangerous tricks, Pastrana already has new tricks in his head: “...there’s always a challenge. The first one is letting the bike fly loose during the jump, making body backflip and then grabbing the bike again before landing.” The next challenge is even more breathtaking: “pulling the bike into the backflip action just moments after take-off, leaving it spin freely beside my body and then grabbing it again before landing. My cousin can pull it. But he doesn’t race.”
Apart from physical form, concentration plays the most important role for the riders. FMX is a show and riders carefully select tricks to impress judges and public. At the training session there is enough time to evaluate own ride and focus on details that can take a rider to the medal. Bikes used are standard 250cc motocross setup. Few modifications are needed to help pull the tricks. Side grab-holes under the seat and a few extra handles are all it takes.
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Freestyle Motocross developed out of classic motocross. While racing, riders used to pull short jumps and perform simple tricks over racing track obstacles. The height evolved. So did tricks for the simple pleasure of riders themselves. And for the pleasure of public to. By the mid-90's few riders abandoned the race altogether and concentrated on the jumps, which eventually evolved form simple flyby jumps into artistic and breathtaking figures.
Nate Adams, the only person to beat Travis Pastrana, performing lazyboy backflip. During the history of FMX tricks evolved in combination of several figures. As back flip became a standard theme of FMX events, new variations are added every year. Riders are touching the length and height limits and the future of FMX will be defined by combinations, technicality and style.
Indian Air – the trick where a rider extends his leg and crosses them in a scissor like motion. The farther the rider extends his legs, the more points he scores. If the rider faces towards the back when performing, then the trick is called a "Lookback Indian Air".
Injuries like dislocated joints and broken bones are what most riders soon get used to. This time bad luck hit 40-year old legend ‘Mad’ Mike Jones. He fell during the training session and broke his right shinbone. Luckily, he got back from the hospital the next day and was able to watch the event live from the tiers.
Eigo Sato, Japan, Asian FMX superstar, pulling one-handed tail whip. The winner of Redbull Xfighters is determined in two rounds: in round one, the riders compete in five pairs, identified the day before in a series of qualification jumps. The riders’ first-round appearances consist of two minutes each in which they must perform better tricks than their adversaries - the winners of the five duels are admitted to the final round. In the final round, each of the five riders has three minutes to convince the jury that, on this night, he’s better than the rest.
Carlos Cordoba from Spain pulling ‘nothing’ - an elegant trick where both hands and feet are removed from the bars.
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Visit the RedBullXFighters website.
