Safety Is Their Moto

As the popularity of freestyle motocross jumping soars, Brian Deegan stands as one of the world’s best in his sport -- with the scars to prove it.

Last year, while filming a stunt for an MTV show that required him to launch himself off a motorcycle ramp on a windy day in Philadelphia, Deegan crashed horrifically, destroying a kidney, lacerating his spleen and a major artery and nearly bleeding to death. In separate jumping crashes, he has also broken his left leg, both wrists, his left ankle, right arm and left shoulder.

“I wear a custom-made, bullet-proof bodysuit now to protect my organs,” Deegan, 31, of Temecula, said recently while practicing for this week’s X Games, which will be held Thursday through Sunday at Staples Center and the Home Depot Center. “I’m the only one who has one, but I don’t have much room left to risk any more injuries.”

Freestyle motocross, FMX, is rooted in motocross racing. Dominant motocross rider Jeremy McGrath would close his convincing victories by flying over final-lap jumps and performing freestyle tricks in mid-air.

In 1999, FMX became a stand-alone sport at the X Games, where it is known as moto X freestyle. Riders are afforded routines of 90 seconds to complete a course of ramps of varying heights, lengths and angles, performing tricks in flight as they are judged by a panel that determines a final score.

Since the sport’s inception, the athletes have continued to produce more daring innovations, launching themselves in the air as high as 40 feet to turn backflips and perform other maneuvers such as the “Superman” seat grab, the “Lazy Boy” and the “Stripper.”

Travis Pastrana, freestyle jumping’s biggest star, has been practicing a never-before-done-in-competition double backflip at his home training facility in Maryland, and he promises something special for these X Games.

“The fans love to watch us push the limit, and it’s been like that since Evel Knievel was around, selling out stadiums for his jumps,” Pastrana said. “The fear of you not making it is what scares people, and it’s why they buy the tickets. That’s human nature.

“Our sport is about progress. Thinking about some trick that might work, working out the kinks, and then nailing it. It’s like being an inventor. And when you see your invention works, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

Thanks to the millions of dollars Deegan has gained as a record 10-time X Games motocross medalist, from personal appearance and demonstration fees and his position as chief executive of a motocross apparel firm, he, along with Pastrana and their leading peers, is afforded the luxury of practicing his most daring new tricks over soft, homemade crash pits filled with foam cushions.

Not every rider is so fortunate, however, and as interest in the risky sport rises from the grass-roots level of everyday motocross riding, some freestyle jumpers and motocross safety advocates contend that there should be more attention to safety.

“It’s not a matter of if you’re going to fall,” said Chris Ackerman, a former rider who is paralyzed and on a ventilator as a result of a crash while practicing jumps with Deegan and other pros in 2003. “It’s a matter of when, and how hard. Everybody crashes.”

Ackerman, 25, is a consultant for Deegan’s apparel firm, Metal Mulisha. He and the others were being filmed in the Dumont Dunes section of the Mojave Desert for a television special and photographed for a magazine series about the 10 best freestyle jumping desert spots when Ackerman, a recreational jumper, crashed into an unseen 40-foot-deep sand canyon. He snapped a vertebra near the top of his spinal column and was left to gasp for life for 90 minutes until emergency help arrived.

“Brian did CPR on me, all the guys did,” Ackerman said. “Because I couldn’t breathe, they had to give me mouth to mouth, and intubate me with a Sharpie marker and a film canister. It was pretty gnarly. They used a ventilation hose from a gas tank to drain my lung fluid. I couldn’t breathe whatsoever. A filmer who saved me luckily had been through forestry survival training. The others said they did what they did from watching ‘ER.’ ”

Now only capable of shrugging his shoulders, Ackerman resides in his Wildomar home and said the safety void in freestyle jumping requires immediate attention.

Since 2004, the San Bernardino County coroner has reported at least four deaths of motorcycle riders killed while “jumping” at desert locations. It was not known if the jumps were tricks frequently performed in FMX competitions, but each of the four victims was either wearing a helmet or full protective gear, according to the coroner. One man died after smashing onto the ground on a 115-foot-long jump, and a teenage boy was killed in June 2005 jumping off a sand dune in Baker.

“If you go to the desert to jump, which a lot of riders do, not much can be done if you’re hurt,” Ackerman said. “But there needs to be places for guys to practice their freestyling, parks like there are for BMX riders and skateboarders -- foam pits that can be used all day.”

The best-known such park is Camp Woodward in Woodward, Pa., which has served as a training ground for top pros and beginners alike. In Southern California, some local pro riders have taken to building their own ramps and foam pits at their home “compounds,” allowing outsiders to jump on an invitation-only basis.

“The way it is now, if you have the money and know-how to do the setups ... you’re good,” Ackerman said. “Otherwise, there’s no real place to practice. You’re left to just go out to somewhere, slam yourself until you get good, and then you’re a pro.”

Lured by the ongoing, innovative aerial feats of Mike Metzger -- he recently set the world record for longest backflip, soaring a length of 125 feet over the Caesars Palace fountains in Las Vegas -- Deegan and Pastrana, some riders have bypassed motocross racing to concentrate exclusively on developing their jumping tricks.

At the Lake Elsinore Motocross Park, Long Beach riders Riley Brown, 11, his brother Cole, 10, and their friend Michael Matroni, 11, said that while they consider themselves motocross racers now, they often test their jumping skills and emulate tricks patented by those who compete at the X Games and the NBC-televised Dew Action Sports Tour.

“We’ll be flying down some trails and see some big jump,” Matroni said. “You hit it, turn around, and do it again and again. I like jumping until I eat it. I don’t think about being scared. If I get scared, I crash.”

Wade Martin, general manager of the Dew Action Sports Tour, said the tour is in its “relative infancy” but is committed to supporting the grass-roots development of FMX.

“We would like to see more practice venues for FMX,” Martin said by e-mail. “Skateboarding has been around for over 30 years and it wasn’t until the last 10 that we witnessed true growth in the number of skate parks in this country. FMX is only about 7 years old as a sport and we believe FMX facilities will continue to grow, perhaps not at the same rate as skate parks given the logistical needs required, but they will grow.”

Martin added his tour is in talks with a number of action sports training facilities about adding FMX as a training option, and is “confident that will take place soon.” He said, for pros, the tour designed a replica of its event course at Camp Woodward that the riders trained on for two weeks in advance of the tour.

Chris Spiepock, general manager of the ESPN X Games’ summer and winter versions, said, “If asked to contribute to any practice facility for any action sport, we would first have a discussion with Woodward, which has been a valued partner of ours and is the most respected training facility in action sports.”

Jim Downey, a Canyon Lake father whose 11-year-old son, Brett, was killed when a motorcycle coming off a jump landed on top of the boy in a motocross race in 2004, has started a safety organization focused on making racing tracks safer. Downey said orthopedists are experimenting with added safety devices, such as a body suit that inflates on a falling rider’s movement, or a blow-up neck device like that used in NASCAR that would stop the neck from decompressing upon impact.

In Riverside County, where rural, hilly tracks and dirt jumps draw aspiring FMX riders, doctors at the Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar treat a variety of jumping injuries, mostly closed head injuries, spinal trauma and wrist and ankle breaks, said emergency room physician Brent Jacobson. In 2005, the medical center reported 132 motocross-related injuries, with 52 of the patients requiring an overnight stay, said a hospital spokeswoman.

“The large portion of our injuries come from guys pushing the envelope too far,” Jacobson said. “These kids watch the others getting stronger and trying to go higher and faster and they feel safe with all of the protective gear.”

Deegan said the reality of safety precautions for aspiring jumpers practicing with friends off the beaten path is this: “Make sure you’re in a cellphone area that works in case you get hurt.”

He has plans to turn his 21-acre Temecula estate into a training ground that will allow selected prospective jumpers to practice in an effort to form a Metal Mulisha freestyle team.

“You’ve got to farm the young talent,” Deegan said.

Yet, screening the athletes for jumping skill, he said, is a must. Insurance liability concerns are too substantial to ignore, he said.

Robbie Maddison, 25, an X Games FMX alternate participant from Sydney, Australia, claims the world record for longest jump with a trick: 246 feet.

“Look, I’ve missed death by inches so many times,” Maddison said. “It’s because of the things I’ve learned that I avoided a serious injury. We all need to pass that knowledge down. The safer the sport is, the better the public persona, and the more willing sponsors are to pass on their dollars to us.

“It’s a dangerous sport. As much passion as you might have, you still have to be wise enough to ask, ‘Is this safe?’ ”

The inherent danger of the sport was repeated on the Dew Action Sports Tour in June, when popular jumper Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg broke both of his legs after flying off his bike mid-backflip, smashing onto a landing ramp on a challenging course in Louisville, Ky.

With the X Games and Dew Tour staffing events with on-scene medical personnel and paying close attention to safe course construction, Maddison said pro riders are most concerned today with the less-organized jumps they are summoned to, including promotional appearances and commercial events like the one at which Deegan was injured.

“Our sport is all about having this total confidence,” Maddison said. “We all have this little man inside who talks to us, telling us we can do it. It takes a certain man to listen to that same little man telling us this isn’t safe.”

A Southern California group, Pro Riders Organization, has formed a union-like association of jumpers working to establish a firm list of safety procedures and ramp dimensions that will help ensure safe tricks.

President and founder Chris Gentry said Pro Riders has rounded up dozens of freestyle jumpers while receiving a $3-million private investment from a motorcycle enthusiast to start building a training compound near Valencia that will serve as a practice and training ground for FMX riders ranging from beginners to professionals. A first phase should be completed by November, Gentry said.

“Issues such as health insurance, training grounds and proper ramp and course design are issues of solidarity that bring our riders together,” Gentry said. “With solidarity, we can nourish the development concerns. We’ve told the riders that these are our problems, and this is what we can do about it.

“Right now, it’s like the Wild West, and we’re outlaws riding around a lot of land. Our sport right now is a work in progress, but everybody knows what needs to be done.”

*

X GAMES

* When: Thursday through Sunday.

* Where: Staples Center and Home Depot Center.

SCHEDULE, D7