Andy Buckworth and Jamie Bestwick, BMX Icons & X Games Gold Medalists – UNLEASHED Podcast E505

Tune in for a special episode recorded at the inaugural X Games Salt Lake City. UNLEASHED Hosts Danny Kass and Brittney Palmer interview BMX trailblazers Andy Buckworth and Jamie Bestwick on the sports and pop culture podcast. Recorded at the Utah State Fairpark and Event Center, the episode gets the inside perspective from Buckworth and Bestwick, and includes a special tribute to the memory of action sports icon and podcast host, the late Luke “The Dingo” Trembath, honoring his unforgettable energy and lasting impact on the community at X Games Salt Lake City.

Hailing from Nottingham, United Kingdom, Bestwick, who currently resides in State College, Pennsylvania, is considered the undisputed king of BMX vert and won his first X Games gold medal in 2000. During a dominant run that spanned 14 gold medals, Bestwick set the record for most consecutive X Games victories and today coaches the next generation of Olympic athletes. Joining him on the episode, Australia’s Buckworth has pushed the progression of the sport by landing death-defying tricks such as the world’s first double frontflip no-hander and no-handed double backflip. Still active on the circuit, Buckworth has two X Games medals to his name, gold and bronze. Get the inside scoop on the state of BMX freestyle competition from these two certified icons, only on UNLEASHED!

Press the play button (and hit Like) on the new episode of UNLEASHED with The Dingo, Danny, and Brittney.

Make sure to subscribe and stay tuned for more UNLEASHED episodes. Also, follow @monsterenergy for updates.

Transcript

0:03

You now, fellow Salt Lake City team, we are live on Twitch X games. The first time I believe X games is in salt Lake City, graced by two of the most amazing heroes of BMX, we got Jamie Bestwick and Andy Buckworth. Of course the lovely Brittney Palmer. Hello. How are you doing, Danny? I'm doing amazing. A little feedback on these guys in background. Jamie, you have quite the stats on that BMX bike. 13 X-Games gold medals in BMX for won gold in best trick, nine consecutive X games gold medals 2007 to 2015, and one of the most dominant athletes in X-Games history. Those were the years over the years. I mean, the best thing is those stats never delete, right? Yeah. They don't that, it's you know what? X games is such an awesome event. It just it just brings out the best in everybody. You know, you just this was our Olympics. So once a year we'd all congregate either in, you know what started out in Providence, Rhode Island, making its way to San Fran and San Diego, then L.A., and we would just come together for the common goal of. That's right. You know, let's ride bikes, let's ride skateboards, let's ride motorbikes, and let's just show and show the world what we've got. Really what we're truly been working on all year long. And, yeah, it's there's a lot of love in this place, and it's great to be here. It's great to have you and Andy Buckworth coming from Australia. A gold medal, best trick, bronze and big air. And known for the fearless trick, innovation and consistency all over the world. And especially, with the Nitro Circus. Yeah, obviously what Jamie said X-Games was the global stage growing up in Australia, it was pretty rare to even catch glimpses of X-Games. Hey, TV's not as common there. X-Games is only televised on Foxtel. And if you could get a glimpse of BMX vert or BMX street or park or whatever you would, you were stoked. So collecting all the magazines and watching all the VHS tapes of all these guys riding was just the fuel to want to get out here. Fortunately, my parents sent me here to a summer camp when I was 17, and I guess I never look back 30 years in the seat. And here we are. That's incredible. I mean, we all have those X-Games memories. I have so many good ones myself on the winter side and always loved the summer ones a little bit more too, because it was like time to just let loose and live the spirit and not have that pressure of competing and party. Yeah. And party. Yeah. But I think like speaking of memories real quick, I just want to point out that this is our first show back after losing our brother dingo. And it is an important show for us because, you know, it's you know him. So in that regard, we wanted to know, is there anything about Luke that stood out to you guys that you could tell us or share on the show? Well, obviously his energy, like he brought the party wherever he went, just had this ability of uplifting a whole crowd, a whole room. Or if it was just you and him, he would just bring everything together. It's it's surreal that the last time I was doing anything with Twitch Live on Twitch was with dingo at my house. So it's I've spent a lot of special times with Dingo at Lake Powell or at Monster Energy events, or Afterparties, or even at my house in the backyard. So being here without him, the last time I was on the podcast, he was obviously here. And it's just like a bit surreal for him to not be here. Yeah, and there's still often times where I'll have a question that I would have gone to him with and then it's like, oh shit. Yeah. I can't call him right now. Yeah, well, you told us his story before, about how he gave you your nickname, dingo. Well, actually, that's how dingo and I got acquainted. But this gentleman here actually gave me the. Oh, you gave him. Okay. It was me. Excuse me, excuse me. I mean, he was kind of the baby dingo, but it comes off, it's quite morbid, really, but it comes off a story that when we were kids in England, there was a story that came out of him, out of Australia, especially around the rock area where a family, that were traveling through got out, stretch their legs, do whatever, and a dingo took their newborn baby. So the running joke was that dingo got my baby. Yeah. So Income's Andy, fresh off the plane from Australia. It's a little bit green around the gills and where it would, would camp. And, you know, we're riding every day and, you know, just. And he wants to jump in and is so keen, that, you know, most days he was it was called the dingo. And then it finally stuck. And I don't I think even when his mum called me one time because he was having a bit of, a hard time not being, in, in America after he went back, I never called him and I just called him dingo, even though I was dingo doing. And then she's like, who's dingo? I was, I, you know. Yes. So I was like, oh, with that, it was just, normal day on the cloud nine box jump. And it was just, you know, you come to America and everyone's asking, oh, do you ride a kangaroo to school? And did the dingo eat your baby and all this stuff? And and, you know, with the straight off the plane accent, you're saying all the, all the quotes back to them, and then he just says, you're the dingo. And it just stuck. So fast forward, that was 2009. Fast forward to 2010. My first X-Games and the team manager at the time for BMX was Dave Schmidt, and he introduced me. Guys, this is the Dingo and Dingo. This is the little dingo and. Dingo just hugged me and he was just like like, we're going to be friends, we're going to stick together. And it was just like this kind of, I'm going to Australian. I think we're going to look after each other. And I don't think I saw him for probably another year, probably it was X-Games the next year until I saw him again and it he had this ability of just remembering every single person he ever met by name, by sport, where we were when we met, the stories we shared. And that for me as a young athlete from another country, it was pretty special. Yeah, he's this person that I'd watched countless hours of. Do you guys on TV on repeat in Bud's Barnet Woodward, because there was only a couple of channels, and just watching these two on TV and then going and meeting him and him being such a legend and such a great fella, and then him remembering me was pretty special. So I will never forget that he would do that. He he would remember and it didn't matter who you were or if you were, it doesn't matter. He just treated everyone as if they were just these like all star X-Games athlete, even if they're just, you know, little old me or something. You know, he was he was so special in that way. Yeah. He's he's, he, he made such a profound effect on everybody. And it, you know, America has this tradition of, like, providing, Bad analogy. The hungry man. Male. Okay. It's kind of like America on a piece of plastic that you shove in a microwave, and it's it's really everything you want to eat all in one setting. And are you calling dingo a hungry man? No. I'm not. Just let me get to it. All right? The first time I met dingo Luke. It just reminded me of. Of kind of like that all inclusive package holiday. It's almost like God built spring break in a man. So you just take dingo anywhere you want, you plant him in place, and automatically you have a spring break, regardless of the weather time of year. You just plant him there and he just goes thing right, let's go. And it was just so much fun to be around. And you know, I think sometimes in life we really do. We take people for granted, you know, and it's and it's only when you know, they, you know, they take they take their leave that they leave such a huge hole. And, and that's when we're really, you know, we kind of sometimes look back and kick ourselves that we didn't maximize on those moments we had with those individuals. And I think over the past, you know, a few years action sports has been pretty cruel to, you know, I mean, that well, life's been pretty cruel to the action sports community. We've lost some absolutely incredible people. And it really does show you how much larger than life they were. And that the impact, you know, was so far and wide that, I mean, their legacy still is, is, you know, touching fans every day. Hence why, you know, the X games is what it is and why it brings us all together. And I think the loss and how much it affects everybody, the hole that the loss leaves is a bit of a testament to the comradery that action sports holds. Dingo from the world of snow US bike motocross, sky ski, snowboard. It doesn't matter if you're here at the X games, it's like one big family. And that's what I had to explain to my wife, is why I spend so much time in the athlete lounge and not just kick back in the hotel. It's because this is the one time of the year that you get to see people from all over the world that you don't get to see every day. This is the the one time of the year that you get to share those stories and share those moments and build those memories. And it's just it's heartbreaking that a lot of the people that we've lost, including dingo, they're the memories that you're you will remember forever. And yeah, just leave that huge hole. Well, yeah, I know it's it's a tough one. I mean, it's been really hard for me, right? Dingo walked into my life when he was, like, a spry 15 years old, and then we kind of became fast friends and then, you know, best friends from there. And there's a funny one where, like, I was on, an American team going over to, like, a Junior Worlds event. And then the first time I meet dingo, he's Australian, but he's on the American team doing, like, border cross there. And I'm like, I don't know how you pulled this off, but it was like one of those things where, like, if he wanted in or thought there was a way he would find it in there, you know, and obviously, you know, I'm lucky enough to be able to get to call him my best friend since then, you know, and I knew that they had all these relationships and was just so well connected. Right. And like, but he had so many best friends and he was probably like 300 people's best friends. And what you said then is how did you pull this off that, like how that thoughts crossed the board? I think countless times a day you would look at him and say, how did you pull this off? It was just he was just so I mean, he had to work it, right? Even with that giant heart, there was such a big brain in there like you would remember, stats and action, sports and other sports and like, so much, you know, knowledge and like, background of all the athletes and just the whole monster family. I mean, he was basically like a walking Rolodex the year, that month, the day and the hour that it happened. And it was just like, you know, it's impressive the way that he would have a good time. Like he was larger than life, but he was so respected in all of this regard. He might have these connections. But like if we go out and party and but like, he would have the best time and we come back and we're still like he would put his business hat on, he'd get on our show and he would be there. And like, he just remembered everything. Even though we were all questioning if he remembered anything from last night because all of us were forgetting all of it. But he was so respected in the industry. And then even further, the more like even in the rave industry, like that whole thing he was, he was everywhere. I didn't really get introduced to the dingo until I was a few years in on, on Monster Energy. And we got invited to raise the bar 1000. But there was a slew of us. There was like Sam Hill, Steve, Pete, and Virgil. And then there was dingo, and there was many more, by the way. And at that moment in my life, I was kind of a professional athlete and, Yeah, kind of tail end of the season. But the, the thing that, you know, really kind of cemented a legendary status for me, for, for dingo was that, every night when I was at breakfast, there would always be stories about, you know, kind of what happened the night before. And we haven't even raced yet. We're not even sat in a vehicle. And we're in and Sonata for, like, a few days. But what that man single handedly did every night was quite astonishing because, because he managed to, to take over, a local, I would say, a kind of, a budget fitness studio where people's clothes seemed to fall off late at night. And they used to, you know, kind of dance around until their clothes fell off. And what he'd done was he'd singlehandedly commandeered the club, and he turned Monster Energy decals into a local currency. And I went one night with it was like me, Andre Taylor and a bunch of that. I said, I've got to go see this. So we walked to the door and you knew who worked at this place because they were head to toe in Monster Energy gear. The entry fee most people were paying in pesos. We just handed over a stack of decals, and some badges. I walked in and I just looked around and he just ran the show. It was like, I know there's an owner of this club, but the real owner is dingo right now. And it was hilarious to say that you could get a big six bucket of Corona on ice for a monster shout, but everybody else was handing over cold, hard cash, and I was sitting there and I was like, oh my gosh, like, this guy is the ultimate Renaissance man. Like, he probably should run for some kind of diplomacy role at the white House or at whatever color house they have in, Australia. Yeah, I would say he's definitely the diplomat of action sports. I mean, he'd probably have an hour conversation with someone that doesn't even speak English, but somehow they would understand him. And likewise, he would understand I'd come out wearing a monster hat. Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're sponsored. Well, thank you guys for sharing your stories. We have, dingos. Mom is here. Leon, just want to point that out. That she's here witnessing and hanging out with us. Love you. Liane. All right, let's get let's get this. Let's get excited about this game. Yeah. Kicking it off here in a couple hours. We do have some fun BMX events today. What do you guys most excited to see? I think, BMX dirt is going to go down crazy today. These jumps ultimate for dirt currently. And I'm in best trick. So I've had a lot of practice on them in the last couple of days. This first jump is incredible. It it just boots you to the moon. You come out of that take off and it just feels it feels like get shot out of a cannon. Now that's a good thing. I like that feeling that a lot of these boys are kind of feeling a little bit timid on it. But one more, one more practice run, for a couple of hours. And then I know people like Daniel Sandoval, Mike Vega, Jay Tuohy, they're going to go absolutely insane. JT did some crazy stuff on that first jump yesterday, and, I think we're in for a good show today. Yeah. I think, you know, we got so many great guys in the, in the BMX dirt side. You know, obviously I'm a huge dad to fan, but, you know, I think realistically everybody is, you know, trying to knock Ryan Williams off his perch. But for me, you know BMX three is also going on this afternoon. Yep. And, I'm a huge boyhood Hilda fan. Me too. Jordan Goodwin came off a, bronze medal in Japan, which is huge for him. And, you know, then we got Kevin Peraza, you know, the kind of multi-discipline threat. So there's a lot of BMX, coming up this weekend. Today is kind of the kick off day, just to see where, where everybody's going to be and how they cope with these hot temperatures, because these past couple of days have been pretty brutal. Everybody taking practice sessions. That being said, we're at 40 200ft altitude, so, that's going to play an effect on everyone's energy levels. And it's hot today and the sun is out. And I think, the key would be to get as many practice runs as you can, but stay cool, stay hydrated, and, try to stay sane. Stay sane. Right. And we're just coming off of the big show in Japan that X games. I got to watch a couple of those clips. Speaking of Kevin Peraza, I mean that, 540 Whip over the table was absolutely incredible. Yeah. 540 fled flag down with a down. I mean, that's a mouthful, but just like that was one of my favorite clips I got to see. Yeah I think yeah. All of those guys that were on the podium, I mean, just you're splitting hairs right there, I think. I think you were the first person to ever do a flag down with. I wish I would have patented that. Really. We'd be doing this right now from my mansion in, in Hawaii next to Oprah. So, you know that best trick contest? I think it stood out for so many reasons. One, you know, there are so many firsts that have I've just I've been done in one 30 minute session and two, it really made Ryan Williams bring out some of the magic tricks that he's got, you know, from his compound in, in Australia. And anytime you can take a champion to a level that, you know, he knows he needs to go to, you know, that's the beauty of the X-Games. That is what creates these magic moments that we've seen over the years, whether it's been Dave Mero with the first double backflip, you know, Neapolitan and and guys like you doing the first double front flip over the mega ramp. You know, the beauty of this contest is it just forces people to just raise the game. And Japan was no, not 30 minutes out on course was incredible. I mean Volga did I was going to say 1260. I was going to say didn't even make the podium absolutely insane. 1260 yeah. I mean, it was crazy because even Kevin presence I'm like, all right, he's got third. What else happened? Right. Yeah, I did see was it a like Anthony jump this this is how gnarly that contest was. Anthony John John did a perfect double flare about eight feet out and got the same response as if Tiger Woods had just done A33 foot putt for a par though, just like well done Anthony I know, I know, I I'm like, hold on a minute. Do you know how gnarly that is? I know I feel the same way. Like when I get to watch snowboarder, you know, coming from this error of like leading this legacy of progression. And then you watch these people do these tricks that, like I dreamed about doing, never got to. And then I'll watch people do them and then be like, you got like fifth place with that, right? Like, I feel so bad for you because if I did that, I'd be like throwing my snowboard at the bottom. I'd be like, see you later. I'm out of here. Well, in Jamie's vert days, if if we were, you know, we all lived at Woodward Camp together and we'd all come and watch each other compete. Jamie would come to the park and watch all the park minions that he watches over ride, and we'd all go to the boat ramp. But if Jamie ever did a double flare, it was like, whoa, he's on today. That's the big deal. Like it's Jamie's going for everything today. So to watch that contest and see the double flare just get kind of overlooked. Like, what is happening? Yeah. What what level are we at right now? EOS I also think that there needs to be a format change. And this is purely in defense of Mike vlogger. Okay. So I've got you back on this Mike forever cameras okay. So any time you send a trick and get royally beaten up by yourself, all the ramps, I think there should be a couple points thrown on. The one that you make, you know, for all the ones that you didn't make. So it's almost like a sympathy point, except, like, how many times you had to try it. Yeah. Harder. It's not like it's how hard it is to be really hard. How hard is it for you to do like, you know. So let me come out here and get it first try. But it's all relative to what you're capable of. Mean pull a member of the audience out and go. You try it. Hello? Angie from, Salt Lake City. How hard is the 1260? And could you do it in Chicago? No, I don't think I could do it. Well, that's an extra five points that we really know. It's hard. Well, we talk about this every year at X-Games. It's like the tricks are getting more. The flips are getting like everything's getting higher and more dangerous. It's like, where do you go from it? Right? Like, everything is becoming so much more dangerous because the tricks that you guys were talking about back then would have, you know, you would have won. And now it's like the, the middle. So what do they go from here, really? I mean, even freestyle motocross. Look at that quarter pipe over. That thing is huge. Ridiculous. And then that the motocross like freestyle motocross best trick, they had to build the ramps bigger so they could do that. Bigger tricks like the take off, the next level take off is taller. It's steeper, the gap is longer, the landings bigger because they needed more air time to do the crazier tricks. Yeah, I thought the tricks were already pretty crazy, right? I think we need to sometimes go backwards to go forwards. If you look at if you look at the old X games and I'm talking like, you know, late 90s, early 2000. Nobody knew what was coming at the X games, but you knew there'd been conversations behind the scenes about building something specific for X games that was going to lead to a golden moment. Travis's double flip just didn't happen by accident. Everything was really, really planned out, you know? Same with Tony's nine, same with Dave's double flip. Everything was planned out. All these golden moments were a conversation in the lead up to the X games, and I think that's what we need to do. We need to go back to having these conversations with the athletes, you know, who have been working so hard at their respective homes on something so groundbreaking that they need something specific to do it on. And if we can take the time to do that and respect these guys, and also if we are looking to be the leaders of progression and to move the track level to a whole new level, then we have to bear in mind that a regular course sometimes isn't going to cut it. We need to build something that's going to enable that moment to happen. And, you know, these guys are ultimately the biggest beneficiaries. Yeah. And just because you're building something for one athlete doesn't mean that other athletes aren't going to benefit. So it's like, say you want to come in and Ryan Williams says, hey, I'm going to do a double front flip tail whip or something ridiculous. And he says, I need a 13ft tall lip. I know that you get put a 13ft tall lip out there. Mike Fogg is going to do something absurd as well. So is Logan Martin. So is Daniel Sandoval. It's not that you're just going to build something for one rider only. But if I will, he says, hey, I'm looking to make this golden moment. It might not be our Willy's golden moment. It might be my fog is golden limit. Yeah. And then really even cross over. Right? Because, yeah, it's like if you take, say like the, you know, the street style or the park, it's like if you had each, you know, disciplined kind of pick a feature for that golden moment. Right. But then you see someone on a skateboard come and hit that feature in a different, unique way. Right? It could really bring out even more across the field. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we also need to bring people back out of the woodwork that are a little bit rough around the edges too. You remember the guy that used to go up against Travis Pastrana that used to wear the Home Depot gardening gloves? And I think the. Do you sell? Yeah. Freestyle motocross kit. That guy was awesome. He had the hockey pads all over. I don't we need we need that guy to boost the BMX, you know, saying, who's that in BMX? Trey Jones, bring it. Yeah, well, even how they do like the three lenses right. Have you. Not in basketball. You know you could have a lottery for one fan to come out you know and hit the course. Yeah. You guys were even saying this before the show. It's like you should bring everything back to X games. Like what? You were listing them off. Yeah. You know, this is the 30th anniversary of the X games. And, you know, there's so much stuff going on this, this, this X games that it's actually, it's it's mind blowing. You know, I've seen so many legends walking around the parking lots in the athlete lounge. It's it's it's a nice feeling. We saw T.J. Lavin yesterday, so. T.J.. Yeah. Lee. What a sexy man. Nice. It's depressing. Straight off the challenge. Here he is. Yeah, straight off the tanning bed. But some of the old X games, things that we that we used to have, we're a lot of fun, you know, street luge everywhere. I would street Lewis. I think every everybody straight luge is that you take a really big hill a lot of towns on it, like Pikes Peak. Okay? And you lay on a skateboard. Lay on it. Oh, yeah. I'd be on for that skateboard. Almost like the. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Well, that some hay bales. Yeah. And you're wearing a full leathers like Moto GP leathers suit and a full face helmet. You lay down, have lean and yeah, bring the new spice guys. Like there's so many good ones in winter. I hard like modified downhill shovel racing. There was like downhill mountain biking. That was pretty cool. I know that look. Super deep. Yeah. On the snow. Yeah. Then there was the, the what do you call it that the the big BMX, downhill racing, all downhill BMX racing. They had it at Woodward Camp. Yeah that's crazy. So instead of BMX racing with some like roller doubles they had 50ft. Yeah. Edge to edge jumps where you're jumping over the track that goes underneath. And we used to have vert doubles. That was a gold medal round. I think some of them were a bit like this is just for Dave Merritt. Give him another gold medal. But anyway regardless yeah there was some teams that you put together. You're like, well that's a little unfair. Well contest is over folks. Yeah. But I think, you know, like there's so many things that we could bring back. And I think one of the things is we need more characters in action sports. You know, we had the condor, the bird man, you know, the miracle man, you know, and the list goes on. Yeah. We need to bring those back. Dingo. Still holding it down? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how 35 years ago. 15 years or so. Andy, I know that you are. You said you're an alternate for for for dirt. For the dirt run. So you've obviously been practicing the course. I have, and I'm also in dirt. Best trick tomorrow. Okay, so that's a bit of a strange feeling, because that first jump is 33ft long to the top. We're probably landing like 35 36ft doing 17 billion miles an hour. There's no stopping. So I only have to jump the first jump. But I'm just finding myself doing full runs because it's what I know what to do. You know, like I, I've been competing in BMX dirt for 15 years and I can't just stop after the first jump. So I feel like, hey, you, do you do it too much? Yes. So you're getting a little comfortable with the Nitro Circus format? Oh yeah. It's fireworks and one big trick. High fives back up. But at the same time, you never know you want to be ready for. In case you get that call. Hey, you're in last minute. I actually had a really bad experience with doing the opposite in Munich X-Games. I was in Mega at, coming off a bronze medal. They put me in park as well as an alternate, and one of the other athletes had a broken collarbone and refused to pull out. He said he was going to drop in for the last place spot. And all week long he's like, no dingo. I'm taking it. I'm going to take the last place spot and get the get the prize money. I've come all the way here and I'm like, all right, cool. So biggest mistake of my life I didn't practice because he was adamant that he was going to just drop in, wave at the crowd and take that check one hour before practice ended, he decided he was not going to. And it was a practice crossover. I was up on the mega ramp in my body armor and full face helmet, and Shaun Heimdall, the monster team manager, comes running over and says, hey, you're in. He pulled out. So I had one hour of practice with. It was like a frenzy of the other 16 riders all trying to get their last couple of minutes in, I think I got like four drop ins before my run, and obviously I was two spots out of finals, but I felt like I made a bit of a fool of myself because I didn't practice. So I'll never make that mistake. Just a couple more hours, right? And you would have been prepared. We kind of call that cold turkey. Yeah. We didn't want to go cold turkey. No practice. It is pretty early here in Salt Lake City, so I'm sure the other competitors are not tuned in right now. They're still sleeping, maybe waiting to come in. So what trick are you thinking about when you get in there for best trick? Yeah. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag, but I've been working on a little. Weight? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow, that's a big one that never been done. Okay. It's it's something that I just I did recently on the Nitro Circus tour. It's more of a passion project. It's something that I, I really want to do for myself. I know personally that it'd take a lot to beat both Brady Baker, Ryan Williams and even Caden Stone coming off last year. You know, hype of trying to do. Cayden calls it the UFO. Ryan calls it the silly Willie. It's somewhat of a double cash roll. It's going to be very hard to beat if anyone lands that. Ryan Williams also has the 720 double backflip in his pocket. He's also got the double flip, double tailwhip. There's Ryan Williams could beat this. Beat anyone out there if he lands any one of his five tricks. So with that being said, I've got a little bit of a passion project that I want to, you know, little demon that I want to conquer. However, there's also a trick that a bunch of us have in our pocket that could be done on this jump. If someone finds the Kahuna is to do it, it's never been done on dirt. It's been done on the Nitro Circus infinite amounts of times. What is that trick? I mean, it's been done. I mean, they know what you're doing on Nitro Circus. This is how my mind is playing it, right? Yeah. Okay. He's told the world everybody else's tricks. That's his own. That's what it is. Kind of consciously, you know, build in this trick up while playing everyone else's down. Because guess what I will is coming in with this. Brady's coming in with that. I've got this one. Yeah, he's got a secret. We're going to have to watch that one for sure. But remind us what time you are going on tomorrow so everyone can tune in and see this trick. I think best trick starts at four. Jamie. Yeah.

4:00, 4: 32:43

00 tomorrow.

Okay. 4: 32:45

00, mountain time. Mountain time. How hard is it to, like, bring a trick from Nitro Circus to dirt? It's exceptionally hard. So Nitro Circus is something that we've been doing for 15 years. We started touring in 2010. I was on that first ever to it. It was. It was a little bit of trial and error back then, but we've been able to fine tune the ramps over the last 15 years. Huge thanks to our boy Ricky Melnick for always having the athlete's best interests at heart. In the early days, you're landing on a scaffold, landing with a few gym pads on it. Now we're landing on a perfect landing with transition, and it's got an airbag cell so we can make it through 60 shows in a row without just completely damaging our body. But everything's calculated from the from the speed in the roll in to the takeoff to the flat bottom, the distance. Everything's perfect. So you can drop in 60 times a night between rehearsals and the show. And if you want to do a double front flip, it's a hard crank in and a good pump. If you want to do a double backflip, it's a cruising over the top and a little squeak of the brake, and we've got it fine tuned to a tee. So much to the point where Jay and I in Sweden first jump of the day, it was like, hey, you want to do a triple backflip train? First jump of the day. First jump. Yeah, yeah. Let's go. We did it two days ago. I mean, surely it's pretty fresh. Never mind. We're doing a double backflip. Triple backflip train. First jump for the day. That's that's not a little risky. It's definitely risky. Is this just a warm up or is this in front of the crowd? This is the warm up. It's just Jay and I out there. But this is just how monster athletes, for all I know you must. Some people get up in the morning and have the steel cut oats I know and go gets up and it's triple backflip. Do you have to crack a white monster? I was going to say if you want. I don't want to do that. Triple back ribs for breakfast. It's fueled by white monster and anywhere. Were like just want to throw that out there. He listens to a lot of Nickelback. Some people tune in to JT, my man here strictly Nickelback and Creed. Anchor. What monster is a big comeback? You know what? Why? I didn't like him in the 90s, but I think I'm going to become a new a new fan like I have to. But how? Not just because it's different to to say an X-Games is you get thrown in the deep end, you show up here on a Monday, you check in practices a Wednesday. The role in his brand new the Dirt jumps, a brand new. The transition is brand new. I mean you've got Adam Lewis and Tyler Truman another eye out there. And they're absolutely wizards on the shovel. But there's no building an exact transition like Nitro Circus, you know, with a pipe bender. So you got to learn the transition. You got to learn the speed. You got to learn altitude, the wind, how the dirt. If it's dry, if it's wet at all changes. Every variable is out there. So 15 years of fine tuning. Nitro circus brings triple back. Let's do breakfast. This is three days of constantly changing variables that you have to change with it, and adapt and evolve straight into dropping the best contest run you've ever done on live television in front of the fans. So obviously it's very different. So yeah, I mean, that's a huge part, right? People don't really see that at home on TV that, you know, you come here and you may perfect a trick somewhere else on something you know so well, but it takes so much more to really bring it out in front of the fans, in front of whatever you have there at the moment, you can't get out a little rake and fix the whole take off, you know, in a couple of minutes. And it's got to be we just talked about doing triple backflips first jump of the day, whereas there's eight riders out there. Seven out of the eight are comfortable doing double backflips. And so far there's only been three of us that have done it. So me, Gabby Chavez and Jay Tuohy are the only ones that have double flip. That first jump in practice and double back flips are just like second nature to a lot of these riders. But because this is so different, the jump is so big that dirt's like concrete. It's risky. Yeah, that first set though is quite obnoxious. I mean, I'm looking at it right. And it is big from over here. Let's look at the thing. Look at the landing. Looks like a double jump. Ridiculous. I mean I went and watched BMX dirt practice yesterday. And the hangtime that the guys are getting over that first set is, is just unreal. I was having a lot of fun with my double flips on it, where I was just doing a single flip and that last minute squeezing and kind of like a skier, you just let it and letting it out. And then right before you land, you squeeze in for a second one. So. So you're saying airtime could be there? Oh, the airtime could be there for now. It's about who all sorts of who wants it the most, who's feeling the best and took it easy or didn't take it easy the night before. With all these tricks. It's all about timing on the takeoff. It's all about finding that snap point off the takeoff. And if you've got a an elliptical transition, finding that point where you're going to pull for a double something spinny, whatever they do it, it all becomes really fine tuned. And I mean, obviously getting to where, you know, you guys get in action sports, we all take some horrible diggers, falling on dirt or concrete park. What's worse? Well, I think with that first jump, falling on dirt might be worse because the dirt is like concrete with a bit of sandpaper sprinkled on top. Okay. And then you're going probably 40 something miles an hour and you're coming down from 30 something feet. Where Park. You're going fast. It's a lot of agility, a lot of technical tricks. But yes, you're falling on concrete, but you're falling from a lot lower heights, I guess. But also if that dirt moves in any way while you're going up like that could affect you got all the variables. Yeah. It's like one shift of a rock and then, you know, you're. Yeah, the roll in might be coming apart a little bit where the, the wood weight meets the dirt and then puts you in a weird position. It's just an infinite amount of variables. Yeah. The end of that rider. I was always lucky because it never really hurt crashing on that, you know, falling like 25ft straight to the floor. Right. That's what I was going to ask you was like soft on that, on that skate like top. You know, he's lying. It's really, really nice. You know these guys that are talking about like, you know, the the composite of the dirt and the cement, like, you know, sliding out and losing a bit of skin. Yeah. There's just some there's just something soft about wrapping a it's almost like a foam for a full face helmet against the floor at about 25 miles an hour from a 28ft fall. So I remember I was very lucky. And so you've taken some heavier ones on the vert than in the park. I, I distinctly remember an X game. They're going to where, where I was on an absolute tear and I hit my head in the third run so hard that when I came to, I actually thought I was on a tennis court and I was sat there telling the medics, like, when did they put a tennis court in the vert ramp? Should be. And they're like, okay guys, I'm kind of getting my and I think that like, I think I watched before I left the hotel, I was watching like a tennis match and, and literally when I came to all, I all literally all I could see was a tennis court. I was like, he won that X games, by the way. You want it? So he's on the podium just like Dazed and confused, thinking he's with Andre Agassi. Patrick Ralph, not that old friggin Andre Agassi. Oh, that's that's really old. But but for Jamie to see a tennis court, it might sound a little bit abstract, but I remember hitting my head so hard in a Not Jessica show. I was trying to do a triple backflip, no hand up. And so I pulled extra hard, pulled the bars into my lap, didn't take my hands off, but I had all that extra rotation. I hit my head so hard that I was saying to the medics, hey, you see that pirate over there? And they're like a pirate is he's got one leg. So I was fully convinced that was a pirate with one leg. So the moral of the story? Kids always wear your helmet. Oh, yeah, always wear your helmet. Don't try that at home. Absolutely not. Don't jump out of your bedroom window onto to your dad's driveway. Jamie, little lesser known fact before the dominant. Avert that you put down, I read that you were an airplane mechanic working on commercial airplanes. Just to give everyone on on, you know, online hope that you could go from anything to being at the top of that vert ramp. Yeah. Yes. I've had some interesting jobs, in the years leading up to riding the X-Games. Construction worker. I used to deliver chocolates around England for a major chocolatier. And then I got a position at a factory that repaired the blades that sit in the engines. So I went, you know, through the whole training and. Yeah, every job I've had is always been fun. But every job I've had was always something to fill the time where I couldn't physically ride my bike or afford to ride my bike. So it's kind of like if I was working on, let's just say, an engine set that was that needed to go back to a customer to be put on a plane, to then be airworthy, to take all of these passengers to the X-Games, you know, nine times out of ten, I was not daydreaming about being a pro the rider while I'm putting, yeah, this is good. This is a good blade. This is a good blade. This. Some of them were quite questionable with the engine set. But you know what? So far I've had no, comebacks, and, everything's been good, but, yeah, you know, you you do what you can, to make the dream a reality. You know, working was fun. I've worked with some great people. They taught me a lot. And it all transferred over to when I became, you know, that I got the life I always dreamed about. And that was riding at the highest level with the best guys in the world. So, you know. Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun back then. I've had, I've had parents of of young up and coming riders come to me and say, hey, like you've been doing this. This was, you know, let's go back a couple of years like you've been doing this 13 years. You've been in X-Games 13 years, Monster Energy 13 years, nitrous, I guess 13 years. How have you kept that, that passion alive? How do you stay so passionate about riding through all the injuries and what keeps you going, and how do we get said rider to do that? And how do we get that? You know, they they just want to play video games or they just want to go and party. They've got a car now. We can't get them back to the ramp. And how do we get them back. And I just say they need to get a job, that you need to take the bike away for a minute and get a job, because when I came to Woodridge in 2017, Gary Ream allowed me to return to Woodward the following year free of charge. But I still needed to get a flight. I still need to organize insurance and organize all the things that come with traveling from a foreign country. And my parents weren't well-off. They had already mortgage the house to send me the first time, so that wasn't an option again. So it was went back to Australia and I had to watch my my rivals ride every day and get better and better. But I knew the goal was to get back to America where I could put in the work. So in that interim period, I worked at McDonald's, I worked at the bike shop when I wasn't at McDonald's, if I wasn't at the bike shop, at McDonald's, I was at the pool shop testing people's water. And then beyond that, if there was free time on a Saturday morning, I would walk the streets, knock on doors and wash people's cars for an extra ten bucks. And it was just all about putting that money and being washing someone's car. Well, text messages are going out on you, Nokia 5100 going, oh, we're all at the skate roll at these dirt jumps, and I'm testing someone's pool water for the first three hours of the day. It was I wanted to be with all the boys riding, but the goal was to get back to America so Jamie can testify to this. There was no stopping me. When I got back to America. I would ride all day to a point where Jamie would say, you need to take a day off. You need one day off a week at least. I'm like, no, I'm going to go to the Dew Tour. I'm doing it. Every dream comes with sacrifice, you know? And, you know, I've seen so many iterations of this story and much like you have, you know, it's it's always the, the kids that have incredible talent, but they don't have the means to get to the place that they need to in order to, you know, show the world what they're capable of. But that's what makes them, you know, the grace. That's what gives them that humility, that gives them that drive, is knowing that they're going to have to go above and beyond what is normally expected in order to achieve their goal. The dream, you know, drive two hours just to go ride a ramp, get a job, work the weekends, you know, do the things that you know that they didn't tell you in the fine print, being the best rider in the world. And but but that's the journey. And that's what that honestly, that's is everybody you see it this X-Games and I had this conversation the other day because I often think that BMX and skateboarding, they're not affluent sports, you know, that kind of an entry level sport. You can get a skateboard for 100 bucks, you can get a bike for 100 bucks, you know, and knowing that, you know, it kind of attracts a certain type of individual because it isn't a team sport. You know, you go to the NFL, you play lacrosse, you need a couple grands with the gear just to get your foot through the door. And then, you know, you could turn out to be crap because everything is provided for you. There's no real you don't put any skin in the game because you know someone's moving you around, and if you're good, you stay. And if you're not, and like Jamie said, it's not a team sport. What you put into this is what you're going to get to get out of it. So he's sitting on top of the ramp. Maybe before he's not. He's knocked himself out, or he's trying to work on a trick that stressing him out. And you go back to that time when you're putting blades in an airplane engine. I go back to that time where I'm cleaning people's food off the McDonald's tables and I'm like, this is much better than that. This is so much better than that. But it instills a work ethic in and these riders that, you know, at the time, they may seem like it's a hardship. I can say, and, you know, they're going out, they're finding jobs, they're doing whatever they can to make the dream a reality. But when that dream does become a reality, all those things they had to endure to go through the extra mile that had to work, when they get their time, they're so grateful that they put in the work because that is a non-negotiable. When you become an elite athlete, like you have a work ethic because you've done it and you did it in the times where nothing was provided, you had to be the sole provider. You didn't have the big sponsor, but you had to go out and earn the big sponsor. And that is, you know, that's what that's what takes these guys all the way to whether it's the triple backflip or the highly decorated X-Games athlete of all time. It's just that early work ethic. When they do it because they're chasing the dream, and the dream is something they love so much to. When they arrive, they don't take it for granted, and then they use that strong work ethic to to elevate the sport and elevate others around them. And I think another thing that action sports and in the work ethic and the the passion side of things is you don't see elite athletes in mainstream sport slam on the ground. Their leg might be facing the wrong way. I've looked down and my leg was facing. It was sideways. The bones are sticking out the side. And then the first thought on your mind is this sucks. But when will it be back on the bike? It's like a soccer player gets flicked on the air and they're on the ground and they're not. They're not thinking, when am I back on the field? Hey be careful. Yeah, so. But what's what's really having that passion, you know that I love this question here. It says what's helped you stay mentally and physically strong through it all. And I think what you guys are touching on is the mentality that like that athletic mentality, that passion for something that you live, breathe and just everything encompasses that. But I'm curious, what about physically like you're physically strong? What are things that you do to keep yourself ready to do all of these insane tricks? And any advice you'd have to your younger self or to people watching? So I made a bit of a mistake in this. In this space I was riding my bike every day. I've got a skate park in the backyard, and I was under the impression loosely that what I needed in my body, I was getting from the ramp. If I needed certain muscles, I was getting it from the ramp. And it wasn't till until recently I had an injury. Last year it was a nerve injury that wasn't strength related, but I did use all that. I lost all of the strength in my right arm, completely lost my tricep, couldn't hold myself on the bike, and Jamie came to me at the first contest of the year and he was like, dingo, you look erratic. You look, you're all over the place on the bike. And I was like, no, I'm doing the tricks. And then I went back and looked at the videos and he was right. I was doing the tricks, but I did not have the strength to stay in a straight line. I was wiggling all over the place. Things weren't how they were in the past and I took the advice of Jamie. I put a home gym in my garage and since that moment, there hasn't been a day go by where I haven't sporadically worked out. Yeah, I might not have put a whole one hour session in, but every time I walk past the machine 20 times a day, I'll do a few sets of something. Yeah, having that gym. I actually made a video for Instagram talking about this road to X-Games, because it was Jamie that was like, hey, you might think you're doing it, but there's an element here missing and it's not the dingo that we know. Yeah. And it was going back to the drawing board, watching the videos and understanding that it wasn't about what I was doing in the air, it was how I was in the role in how it was between the jumps. I did not have the strength. Yeah. So it was going back, putting the time in the home gym. I was sending Jamie updates like, look, I'm doing the home gym and it was almost night and day. It was week one. I was seeing results, week two more results, and it was having that gym in the house and hot and my wife holding me accountable to get in there and put in the work off the bike to get the results that I want on the bike. Gotta hit those weights. Yeah, I think it's a non-negotiable, really, when you're, an elite level athlete or even just, you know, an athlete that's looking to, you know, to take himself further than he ever thought. You know, being flexible and being strong is a requirement in action sports. And I think sometimes the flexibility and the stretching aspect can really get overlooked because we just we go out there, we do the thing and then we go home, we sleep, we wake up and then we repeat, repeat, repeat. But if you're not stretching, if you're inflexible, that often leads to injury. And who wants time off a bike? You know, like Andy, Andy was struggling in a few different areas, and all he needed to do was maybe just dial back the ride and then implement a strength program that would actually help him, ride better because he was just, you know, without that strength, those jumps, they're not happening. Yeah. And I think that's a huge problem. I mean, most athletes really make right where they don't really do rehab until they're injured. Injured. Yeah. And if you don't learn that like, hey, I gotta put this work in just to get back, but then start to realize I need to do this, you know, more often to be riding the way I want to ride, where you see a lot of people, where they're just make that mistake of riding day in and day out and maybe not riding at their highest level, but just feel like they're always getting stronger. Where yeah, yeah, it's the work you do to prevent the injuries on a daily basis. You know kind of that. Yeah. Like I say pre have you know. Yeah you're right. You get injured, you go do you rehab, you get back on your bike and then you go to, you're injured again. You know, the best guys in the world now are all doing the work day in day out to prevent the injuries. You know, they know ultimately they can't stop that. But it's the work that doing behind the scenes both physically and mentally, is all in preparation for the inevitable. And when it does come, that body is more prepared than it's ever been. Know.