The First Mega Ramp part 2

This clip is from a TV show called Stuntmasters, and features Mat Hoffman, the first BMXer to ever appear on the show.

In the last post I wrote about my experiences shooting video at the 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails, near San Diego, California in 1991.  As radio icon Paul Harvey used to say, "Here is... the rest of the story."  At the time I went to that contest, I was working as a production assistant at a TV production company called G.R.B. Motorsports in Studio City, California.  I was the low guy on the totem pole, doing stuff like ordering supplies, labeling and logging tapes, and keeping the tape library organized.  It was my first job at a "real" Hollywood production company, and we were producing the supercross and monster truck TV shows that year.  The main office of G.R.B. was about a mile away, situated in a nice suburban house.  That part of the company produced the World's Greatest Stunts and Stuntmasters shows.  One of their stuntmen, who went by the moniker Johnny Airtime, also worked on staff in that office.  So I did something I wasn't supposed to do.  I made a 3/4" (professional quality) copy of the highlights from the Mission trails contest, and I sent it by interoffice memo to Johnny Airtime, who I hadn't met at the time.  I sent a note that said something like, "I'm a BMXer working at the other office, and I thought you'd like to check out some footage of a contest that happened last weekend."  I put it in the interoffice mail, and went on with my job.  The next day, our receptionist buzzed my phone, "Uh... Steve... Johnny Airtime's on the line... and he wants to talk to you."  I was blown away.

Let me tell you a little bit about Johnny Airtime.  There was a long stretch, more than fifteen years, between the stunt career of Evil Kneivel and Seth Enslow, who sparked another generation of motorcycle jumpers.  In that period between the two, Johnny Airtime was the guy who kept motorcycle jumping alive.  But he took a different tack than Evil.  Rather than just hitting a ramp and hucking himself over a bunch of cars, Johnny Airtime did super technical, and super dangerous motorcycle jumps.  In one jump he jumped over a moving train, lengthwise.  That's crazy enough.  But Johnny set it up so the train smashed his takeoff ramp seconds after he took off.  In another jump, he jumped two semi trucks lengthwise, while the trucks were doing 30 miles an hour down the road.  In another jump, he jumped off a takeoff ramp and into the back of a moving truck.  He actually smashed through the roof of the truck on purpose.  Johnny Airtime took motorcycle jumping into a whole new realm of super technical jumping, and inspired a new generation that started with Seth Enslow and other crazy freeriders, and turned into today's freestyle motocross guys. 

So, needless to say, I was blown away that Johnny Airtime wanted to talk to me on the phone, and my boss, who was an asshole, was kind of pissed off about it.  So I picked up the phone.  "You BMX guys are crazy!" Johnny exclaimed.  "I'm not crazy," I replied, "but my friends are."  We hit it off immediately, and Johnny talked about how crazy that footage was for about fifteen minutes.  Then he took it to a place I never expected. "We need one of these guys for Stuntmasters," he said.  At the time, I was spending my weekends shooting footage of Chris Moeller, Dave Clymer, and the rest of the guys on the S&M team, which was the leading team of jumpers at that time.  Johnny asked me what these guys could do... and actually land.  Moeller was known for doing huge 360's, so I told Johnny about that.  I said the top guys could 360 about 20, maybe 25 feet.  "But it has to look spectacular," he replied.  "Uh... they could jump over a pit of rattlesnakes or something."  Yeah... rattlesnakes, that was my first idea.  Johnny told we that wouldn't be visual enough.  So as my boss peaked into my office, wondering what the hell I was doing, Johnny and I threw ideas back and forth.  "They could do a 360 over about three cars," I offered."  "It has to look more spectacular," he replied.  "Uh..." I stammered, "you could set the cars on fire."  Johnny Airtime said that might work.  I was stoked, because I thought I just scored a TV appearance for one of the S&M guys, either Moeller or Clymer.  We threw around a few other ideas, but kept coming back to the 360 over three flaming cars .  Then the conversation took another tack, "What about that kid Mat Hoffman?" Johnny asked.  He said he had seen some video of Mat and they'd been thinking about contacting him, but no one knew exactly what kind of stunt he could do.  "Yeah," I replied, "Mat could do it."  We talked another minute or two, then Johnny thanked me again for sending him the footage, and we hung up.  My boss asked why I'd been on the phone for 20 minutes when I was supposed to be working.  "I just came up with a stunt for Stuntmasters," I replied with a smile.  My boss looked perplexed and walked back to his office. 

I ended up meeting Johnny a couple of times, and he said that they planned to do the BMX stunt for the next season, and I could work on the crew.  Soon after that, thought, most of the staff in my office quit to go work on American Gladiators.  My workload tripled, and most of the people left in the office I didn't like.  I quit and found another job.  I never heard another word about Mat's stunt until about a year after it happened.  Somebody told me they saw it on TV, and I was stoked it actually happened.  At the same time, I was bummed I didn't get to work on the crew of that show.  But that's life in Hollywood.  I rarely saw Mat during that time, and I never mentioned my conversation with Johnny Airtime to him. 

But wait... there's more.  I titled these two blog posts, "The First Mega Ramp" because in my mind, Death Jump at Mission Trails was the first Mega Ramp.  It had a downhill run to a kicker, a long gap, and a big, downhill landing.  That jump vaulted a handful of BMX riders into the realm of stunt men. 

Years later, I read Mat Hoffman's book.  In it, Mat mentioned the Stuntmasters stunt, and said that was where he met Johnny Airtime.  Mat told Johnny he was looking for a way to do higher airs.  Mat was flirting with the fourteen or fifteen foot range on a normal ramp, but couldn't take it any higher.  Johnny, being an expert at the physics of jumps, told Mat that to to bigger airs, he needed a bigger ramp.  Mat took that idea and ran with it.  The next year he built the first mega quaterpipe, 21 feet high as I recall.  Following that he made a mega halfpipe and put a weedeater engine on his bike in an attempt to push high airs even farther.  On the quarterpipe, Mat set an official world record of a 26 1/2 foot air.  Mike "Big Island" Castillo, who worked for Mat during that time, told me he's seen Mat do airs about 29 feet out unofficially. 

The lesson for me in all of this is that when you show other people your sport to spread the news, it can have bigger consequences.  I sent Johnny Airtime some footage to show him BMX.  That led to a stunt and Johnny meeting Mat.  That friendship led to the birth of Mega Ramps, and ultimately to today's big air bike and skate contests, which is some of the craziest riding ever.  That led to the Nitro Circus "gigantaramp" where they jump the big gap on all kinds of contraptions.  And now you know the rest of the story.