No Practice, No Problem...

We sat down with Ronnie before the show to get his take on the attempt at the world record, and what it's like to be falling straight out of the sky from 35 feet on a 230 pound machine...

How did the stunt get set up?I actually already knew some of the [Stunt Junkies] production team from back in the day. I wanted to come up with something that fit my style that I knew I wasn’t going to kill myself on, because I’m all about staying alive. The organizer for FMX for the X Games pitched the idea to break the Step-up record, and Step-up got really good ratings last year at the X Games, so he knew it would be good for TV. It just worked out; the time was right and it came together really quick.

Where is it going to go down?At this house I’m trying to get into down in Fallbrook, California. It’s a 12-acre ranch with a motocross track. I have an option-to-buy deal going with it, so I saw it as an opportunity to pay for the place. I used the budget with the show to build my freestyle landing, which doubled as the step-up landing. It worked out really well.

What’s the current record? The current world record is 34 feet, and the X Games record is 35 feet. That’s measured from flat ground to the top of the bar. I’m hoping to beat both records.

How high have you gone previously?The highest I’ve gone, unofficially, was around the record mark one night in Bakersfield, but they really didn’t measure it up [accurately], so I can’t claim that. In competition, I think I’ve gone about 33 feet.

Do you have to set your bike up a certain way for Step-up?Some guys do come in with a bike with a lot more power than their normal freestyle bike. When Jeremy McGrath stepped into the mix a few years ago, he brought the luxury of having a factory sponsorship and an R&D department to make him a bike with a lot of torque and bottom-end power to burst off the lip of the jump. I just use my standard bike. I’m really happy with my KTM; it’s got a lot of power.

How are you practicing for it?Not many guys practice for step-up; I’ve never practiced before a contest. This will be the closest thing to practice that I’ve gotten. It’s a vertical lip, so it erodes really fast, and it’s just flat-out dangerous to be doing all the time. You’re falling straight out of the sky from 25 feet above the lip with no forward momentum. It’s not really something you practice.

You’ve said you’d “rather be in them all than win them all”; are you concerned about injury for this record attempt?I’d be an idiot if I weren’t always thinking that I could get hurt on these bikes. I know there’s a possibility of getting hurt; it’s not the best decision to go straight up and down with a 230-pound bike following you, but I’m pretty confident that I’ve got the skills to pull things off if I get in a bind.

Are you going to breakdance afterward?

I don’t know; we’ll see how happy I am (laughs).