Deegan Fills Us In…

bayodome

• October 27 2009
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Motocross racing has had a governing body and group watching out for the riders for a long time, pretty much since the inception of the sport. But freestyle, perhaps because of its roots as an outcast sport, has never had an organization looking out for the riders’ interests, until now. The AFMXA (American Freestyle Motocross Association) was put together by the biggest names in freestyle to help bring the riders together, provide some structure and safety, and help to groom the future riders of the sport.  Brian Deegan, the General of the Metal Mulisha, is one of the founding members, we spoke with him earlier today to find out what the AFMXA is all about.  On November seventh the group will be hosting the first ever amateur FMX contest at Pala Raceway, and Brian filled us in on the details.

We hear you have a pretty big event coming up next weekend.

The bottom line is that we started the AFMXA to organize the sport of freestyle motocross to make it safer after Jeremy Lusk’s accident.  We just thought it was time for something to happen so all of the riders came together.  Our main goal is to keep freestyle around and keep it growing.  This last year especially, a lot of the events had fallen off, so I want to make sure that this sport stays around like skateboarding has been able to.  Our goal is to put on the first amateur freestyle event in America and start building up some young riders so that there is a future for the sport.  That’s how all of the other big sports do it.  Ours is one of the only pro sports without an amateur series, so we wanted to dedicate our time to build this up, and hopefully do it in a safe manner.

So a big part of it is just to get the kids going in the right direction and keep them safe right from the start?

Yeah, we’re trying to give the younger riders a platform to compete and to go out and show their talents.  In other sports, such as skate, its easy to just grab a board and go skate.  But with freestyle moto, you need a ramp, land, and a $6,000 motorcycle.  So any way that we can help these kids will hopefully get them started the right way.

As far as the safety issue of this event and for the future, will the AFMXA function as somewhat of a sanctioning body, similar to that AMA with racing?

Our goal is not to dictate the sport but we definitely want to set some standards for safety and work with the promoters to make sure their events are safe and looking out for the riders. Really the AFMXA is a voice for the riders. We are definitely there to help organize the sport.

Freestyle has now been around for well over a decade, so perhaps this is one thing that will help make it a bit more legitimate in the public eye.

For sure.  Our hearts are into it and for the promoters, I feel like the day they stop making money off of this sport is the day it’s done and for me, I just don’t want to see that happen.

So talk about how the whole amateur freestyle contest is going to go down.  Will there be qualifiers? What will the structure be like?

AFMXA.org is where riders sent in their video resumes.  We reviewed them all, and invited most of them since most of the guys were pretty good.  We are going to make a safe setup at the event.  Practice starts at 8:30am and will go for a couple of hours.  There will be about 15 or 20 amateurs that will qualify down to a five rider final with two runs in their qualifiers and one run each in the final. Since there are some guys who are somewhat between pro and amateur, we decided to do a pro/am class as well.  We really want the young kids coming up who only know a few trick to actually have a shot at winning, and not get smoked by some guy who has already been doing demos.  The qualification to be a amateur is they cannot have any paying sponsors and have also never done a demo.

Back flips are so common among the pros nowadays, are the amateur kids starting to emulate that as well?

We are pretty much just saying no back flips at the first event because we just don’t want people coming in thinking that if they come in and can do a back flip then they will do well.  We don’t want any big crashes like that or any pressure on the guys. It’s freestyle and you can tell who has skill and who doesn’t.  We just don’t want to be hauling off guys to the hospital for our first event.  Judging will also be done by Nate Adams, Potter, Twitch, myself; all of the guys. Following the amateurs, there will be a pro demo at 2pm.

Are most of the people coming from So. Cal. or are they coming from other parts of the country as well?

We have gotten entries from all over the world. It’s been crazy.  We’ll see how it goes.  We have invited most of the people who applied. The are some kids from the West Coast but a lot from elsewhere too.  You can still sign up and entries will be open until the day before the event, we’re just trying to give everyone a shot.  Then we are doing the first AFMXA Awards Show and that will take place at the Pala Casino just down the street at 6pm.  You can buy tickets on the website.  All of the pros will be there and that’s where we will give the award for the amateur event too.

For more info on the AFMXA and the event on November 7th, please visit www.afmxa.org