INTERVIEW: Jolene Van Vugt, Nitro Girl

Jolene Van Vugt had some wild dreams as a little girl, growing up playing in the mud by the side of the motocross track while her dad raced and going on to win a CMRC Women's Canadian National Championship of her own, but she never ever dreamed she'd be running away with the circus some day.

Then again, she never figured on a ringleader like Travis Pastrana, either: In 2005 TP coached her to become the first woman to land a backflip on a full-size dirt bike; in 2008 he helped put her name in the Guinness Book of World Records and invited her to crash his Nitro Circus boys' club as a full-time cast member – aka Nitro Girl – when he took his Nitro Circus to MTV.  

Now that Nitro Circus Season 2 is a wrap – the Nitro Circus 7: Country Fried DVD drops tomorrow – and the crew is warming up for a live arena tour to take its antics to Australia in the new year, we caught up with Nitro Girl to talk about the trapeze acts and tightrope walks that have become her life as she balances the last of her racing dreams against her new MTV celebrity status and her plans to make a career of this whole stunt woman thing.

Congrats: You became the first woman on the DC Moto team earlier this year! I know you were frustrated that your wrist injury made you miss X Games. What kind of racing goals do you still have left in you at this point?

I definitely want to revisit X Games next year, but otherwise my schedule has gotten really busy in terms of trying to squeeze any racing in. We have sort of a new surprise for Nitro Circus fans: We're doing a live arena show and we're going to do our first tour in Australia for five weeks. There will be freestyle, slip and slides, big wheels, base jumping, and some new stunts, and I'm really excited about it. We'll be doing quite a bit of training leading up to it, and personally I'll be focusing more on jumping ramps, freestyle, and working on my backflips for a while. But racing is in my blood. I'll come back to it, for sure.

We saw you in a cast for a lot of Nitro Circus Season 2. How is the wrist injury now?

It's getting there! It's not completely healed and it's been a little bit of a long road, but I've been lucky that we've had quite a bit of downtime lately and I'll be good as new in the new year.

What are you working on in terms of freestyle these days?

I'm definitely going to be diving deeper into freestyle than I have before, polishing up some tricks and working to get some new ones down on the list. I'll be doing the backflip a lot more often and I'm working towards being able to do it nightly for the shows on the tour.

What's it like being part of the whole crazy boys' club with those guys?

For me, it just feels like home. I grew up in the motocross industry and being around boys constantly. I've been racing dirt bikes and playing hockey most of my life, and I was always kind of into the tomboy sports, so I've always sort of been a fly on the wall with the boys' clubs. The guys don't give me any sort of special treatment and I wouldn't want it any other way. They're just my friends: I love hanging out with them and having fun.

Do you ever feel like you're in a position of being the voice of reason around these guys when they're going totally over the top?

Sometimes, but that role comes into place for all of us at one point. We're all a little crazy and we all have that crazy gene, obviously. That's what makes Nitro Circus. But we all see things slightly differently, so sometimes there's 5 of us that think a stunt is completely sensible and there always seems to be that one person piping in as the voice of reason. I've definitely taken that position a few times to ask questions or give someone a little talking to, like, "Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure this is going to work out?" It doesn't always stop the stunt from taking place, but it helps us work to figure out the best way to perform a stunt and control some of the variables that other people might not have thought about. We make a pretty good team that way.

I know you had a role in starting the Canadian National Series and taking the lead on getting women's racing going. Now that you've got this high profile position on MTV, do you take being a role model for other girls trying to get into the sport seriously?

Definitely. That's one of the things I'm most proud of: If, just by being me and going out and doing something I love, I can help any girl to be more positive and go out and chase their dream, or not let other people tell them they can't do something, then I feel like I've accomplished something tremendous. If I've helped even one girl be inspired to get into motocross or try something outside of what would traditionally be considered "girly," I definitely feel like I've done something to be proud of. It's really cool to have younger girls look up to you in the motocross industry, especially, and that's one of the neatest things about being an athlete and being in the public eye.

How did you first get involved in it when you were younger yourself? Did you have a role model?

My dad. It's a family thing for us. My dad's been racing since I was a baby, and I remember being taken to the motocross track when I was little, running around and playing in the dirt. My dad and my brother raced, and my dad, he's 64 years old and he still races today. So it definitely comes from my dad. I've been inspired and encouraged by my father, and it's just something I grew up with.

Nitro Circus Country Fried Trailer from Nitro Circus on Vimeo.

What attracted you to performing the kinds of stunts we see on Nitro Circus?

It's something I've always had an interest in, you know, watching movies and seeing different stunts. Being a stunt woman in the movies was always something I had an interest in growing up but I didn't really know how to pursue it and I was more focused on racing, anyway. Then Nitro Circus happened to come along at the right time and lead me in that direction, and I was super pumped on it. Hopefully with all my experience with Nitro Circus, when this whole ride is over I'll be able to move past that into a next chapter of being a stunt woman in the film industry.

Lately I've been talking to a lot of the freestyle riders involved with the new American Freestyle Motocross Association and working to make FMX events safer. I'm curious, now that you've wrapped up Season 2 and are working on the new live show, how much safety planning and concern goes into the stunts we see on Nitro Circus? When you're watching it on TV there's definitely the impression of, "not a lot."

We try to take as much precaution as we can, and there's definitely a level of behind the scenes planning and stuff that you don't get a sense of from the other side of the box. Obviously when you're doing stunts there's always a level of risk, and you know that going in. You accept that you could be injured. But we do work hard to make sure the conditions are right, and we all train as much as we can to be able to do this stuff. Still, If there's a possibility that a stunt is going to go completely horrendously wrong, we've definitely stopped stuff and walked away from it. We try to make things as safe for us as we feel comfortable, and no one is ever forced to do anything they're not comfortable with.

I saw pictures of you on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards.  How has it been adjusting to the level of celebrity that comes with being on Nitro Circus and MTV and all the stuff that comes with it?

It's been fairly easy for me. I don't think I feel it as much as someone like Travis does: He gets bombarded it with it, but I've been able to go pretty much about my regular life and fly under the radar pretty well. There have definitely been some perks, too. Going to the awards show and walking on the red carpet was a lot of fun. I think I liked it more than the guys, getting all dressed up and getting to be glamorous for a minute. But we're still the lower end of the totem pole in all that, to the point where I'm not sure "celebrity" is quite the right word for it. When we were on the red carpet we had the paparazzi asking us who we were before they'd take our picture. They were like, "Next!" It keeps you humble.

What's your friendship with Travis like at this point and what's it like to have someone like him pushing you and challenging you?

I've known Travis for about 10 years and he's really been pushing me personally for the last 5. He was my teacher and mentor for the backflip, obviously, and he's become one of my best friends, somebody I can talk to about anything. In terms of motocross and stunts, he's just such a good person to push you to the next level, you know? He's an amazing person and an extraordinary talent. Even being around him as much I've had the opportunity to be, I still don't know how he can do all the things he does.

What else is on the horizon for you?

We're still waiting to hear from MTV about season 3 and we've all got our fingers crossed on that one. I really hope we get to do it, because I think we have a lot of great shows and good entertainment left in us. In the meantime we're really focusing on the live tour in Australia and looking to where else we can bring it if it goes well. We have practice sessions beginning in December. We're just trying to test different stunts and things we want to do, see what will work in an arena setting. We want to make sure it's a really good show.

Any shout outs you want to give to close out?

I just want to thank everyone for watching Nitro Circus and supporting us all these years, and also our new fans who've found us through MTV more recently. It's been more fun than you could possibly know, and hopefully we'll be able to keep putting on a good show and entertaining you for a long time to come.