GIRL ON: Jolene Van Vugt

 

 

FMX and motocross are not sports that usually evoke the thought of women. Especially not like snowboarding or surfing where women are clearly a part of the scene. However, in the rough and tough world of dirt there are a lot of women and every year the number grows.  Jolene Van Vugt from Ontario is one of the growing statistics of women dirt bikers. And more impressive than just being a number, she can actually claim being one of the first women in the world to land a backflip on a dirt bike, a trick guys have only begun mastering in the last four years.

 

Lat34 caught up with the Canadian dirt lover to find out just how she got into the sport and what guys think when a cool girl like Jolene rolls up on a bike and whips off her helmet to reveal long flowing hair and a beautiful face.

 

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JVV: I am not officially an FMX girl yet. I am more of a motocross racer. I mainly got into FMX through Travis Pastrana. I went to his house and tried the backflip in the foam pit and got kind of hooked on it from that. Also my brother has a freestyle team in Canada so I get a chance to jump with him a lot.

 

JVV: It’s one of the easiest hard tricks there is. It’s simple for what you are doing. You go toward the ramp and you have to know how to control the throttle and when to open it up. The real secret though is you have to be 100 percent committed. You hit the ramp and look back and throw the bike.  It’s really not hard, it’s just that most people have a head block of being able to commit to that concept of being upside down.

 

JVV: When I started my mistake with it was not having enough throttle off the lip. A lot of it is in your head. You have to really want to do. You can’t half way do it or you will get hurt. If you want to do it and commit it comes around. It’s one of the craziest things I have ever felt. The first time I landed it I was so excited I couldn’t even move. I was so shocked and speechless. I just sat there. I was shaking from the adrenaline. I just wanted to sit there and take in what I had done.

 

JVV: Then I did it for real on dirt. It’s when you do it on a 60 foot ramp to dirt, a real gap jump that it changes. That was in the fall. The first time I crashed really hard then a few weeks later I landed it.

 

JVV: When I crashed the first time it was in the 4th Nitro Circus Video Lock and Load. I didn’t have enough speed off the lip. I went out with enough speed but it was throttle control again. When you go from a foam pit to dirt it’s different. It’s not in some ways but it is. It’s all a mind thing. When I got into the rotation I was upside down and I wasn’t going anywhere else. I got myself away from the bike as much as I could. I crashed and the bike grazed me a bit. It wasn’t too bad for crashing a backflip. I just got some stitches on my elbow and that was about it. Banged up.

 

JVV: I set a record of the longest female backflip so I knew I had to do it. My second attempt was successful three weeks later. I have to drive down to Travis’ house to do it and he’s like 12 hours from where I live. When I crashed my handlebars were bent and my bike was a bit mangled. I went home and repaired everything and then went back.

 

JVV: Yeah that’s the thing. My first attempt there were tons of people there with cameras and all of these people were watching me and then a couple of weeks later it was just one camera and I did it. It’s too bad since I wanted the sweet shot, but then again you don’t want the pressure.

 

JVV: It started with motocross, which is my main focus. I race the WMA in the US and then a Canadian circuit. I have been riding since I was 11 with my Dad. My brother and father have been racing my whole life. I grew up around it. When I was 11 I asked my dad if I could and then after some persuasion he let me use my brothers old bike. At 15 I started racing more competitively and going to the US and racing. Now I am 26 and still trying to make a career out of it as much as a female can in the moto industry. I won the women’s Canadian National Champs last year. Unfortunately I got injured and didn’t get to do much WMA. Spent the rest of the summer recovering and now getting ready for a new season.

 

JVV: Yeah a lot of times if I get introdiced to someone and they say what do you do and I say I race dirt bikes they are like ‘no way!’ When I am with Travis and people say oh this is it the girl who did the backflip people never believe it. There are a lot of pretty girls in motocross right now though.

 

JVV: Motocross for me is not just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. A lot of people I grew up with were involved in it. You live motocross, you watch it, you practice, race train play video games. I have been in it so long it’s what you know best. It’s a tight group. You always feel like you are in a family and everyone knows everyone. Even when I come to the US it’s the same thing. You are competitive on the track but the second you need something or need a hand there are a lot of people there to help you out.

 

JVV: For the most part they are pretty nice. I don’t have many I don’t get along with. My best friend in Canada is Jessica Foster. We race and compete together. I have Sarah Whitmore, Tara Geiger all of these girls I stay at their houses and we really help each other out. We are all friends like that. It’s fun.

 

JVV: T-boning someone is dirty and that’s on purpose. Moto is pretty competitive and there is a lot of physical contact. You are going to be competitive and you want to get to that corner and fight for it. You don’t take someone out on purpose though. It doesn’t happen too much in the front of the pack. The top first few positions can get crazy. If you get knocked and you fall over that’s just the way it us

 

JVV: I have had a few. In the past year the worst one I had was in June last year. It put me out for the rest of the season. I wasn’t able to ride a bike for four months. I was in a race in Canada in a full gate of women and we went into a corner and I was in the front of a pack and a new girl came into the corner and she didn’t turn and took out a lot of girls.

 

JVV: I flew superman over top of my handlebars and landed on my head and flipped on my back. I got severe reverse whiplash and broke my wrist. I got up and finished the race because I had to in order to win the championship. By the end of the race I couldn’t hold my head up and for two weeks I was messed up. I had a lot of x-rays because they thought I damaged my back.

 

JVV: I see a lot of blood. It doesn’t bother me. I have seen a lot of carnage. Two years ago I was in another first corner accident and I smashed my face into the back of a tire. My nose broke and then the way it was smashed it cut open the bridge of my nose and my goggles filled up with blood. I went from being able to see to staring at complete red. It was pretty gross. The paramedics wouldn’t let me move. I was fine but it looked so dramatic. It was just a broken nose though. You deal with a lot of injuries. You get hurt all the time and your friends get hurt all the time. You almost get immune to it. You feel the pain when someone crashes and know you have done it, but it’s like hope they are ok. You see so many injuries all the time.

 

JVV: In the industry I get along with them all. I think for the most part they think it’s cool. For some guys they don’t like it they have the idea that women should be in the kitchen mentality, but we ignore them. There are actually more guys that are pumped and positive about it. It’s a great way to pick up guys in a bar though, that’s for sure. You go to the bar and guys are like you race dirt bikes? That’s hot. There are negatives for all women in professional sports though. As we get more accepted the industry opens up more for girls and so that’s why I keep at it.