Random Though 3 Ashley

Right now, I don't even know if anyone is even looking at this blog. It says 17 page views, but that very well could be my contribution alone. Maybe I should hook this up with my Twitter and Facebook or something. I'll figure it out later.

Anywho..... You're probably wondering what the post title is about.

Well, if you know me personally, you probably already know, and you might as well just wait for the next blog post. Seriously though, you might as well just go back to Facebook or whatever you were doing. You know who you are.

A few years back, I started to write as a hobby. That’ll come next blog post.

In my search for a good book about dirt biking, I came across a girl. Her name is Ashley Fiolek and she's got bigger balls than most guys out there. And I say that with all the respect in the world. I really do.

Ashley rides dirt bikes professionally. I know right? Crazy. I didn't even know they had a professional women's racing until I found out about her. I found her autobiography, read it, and was hooked. This girl turned pro at eighteen, has won four Women’s Motocross championships, two X Games gold medals, and was the first women rider to have a full factory sponsorship. This chick rips!

Oh yeah, did I mention she was born profoundly deaf? Yeah. She can't hear her bike.

Almost forgot about that, sorry.

I'll let that soak in for a second.

Times up.

I started to wonder what it would be like to meet her. With her being deaf and all, how would one strike up a conversation, or even ask her for an autograph? Well, I started researching how people become deaf (Ashley's was due to viral complications in her mom’s pregnancy) how people handle being deaf (American Sign Language is harder than it looks) and how every day life is for the deaf community (try just ordering a hamburger without speaking) and as I started learn everything, I realized how insane the feat Ashley has pulled. Not only has she devoted her life to a sport that is pretty shutout for girls, with little pay, little to no TV recognition, and getting on and staying on a factory team is near impossible.

All of this piled on her, and she can't even hear her bike. She’s a 5’ 2” 100 pound chick that’s throwing a bike around that’s more than twice her weight. You thought she had balls before, didn’t you?

Ashley got me back into racing. And by “back into racing” I mean watching racing, not actually racing. I’m not that fit. So I started watching the races on the weekends and made it a goal to go watch her and all the rest of the guys and girls race. It had been nearly a decade since I had been to a race. I needed to go back. Plus I had to meet this chick.

So I asked my dad if we could go to the Thunder Valley Motocross in Denver just after my high school graduation. Sweet present right? Yeah. It was. You think motocross is cool on TV? Trying being literally three feet away from over forty bikes as they come screaming off a downhill jump and before slamming on their brakes and blasting around a corner into another jump. It’s insane. I have smelled race gas, and it is sweet. Burns your eyes though. High octane Go-Juice right there.

It was funny to watch the riders line up at the starting gate. The guys were all business. In the zone, spitting fire out of their noses as they stared down the other guys at the gate. The girls on the other hand were passing around iPods and playfully hitting each other, only to go out and beat each other up on the track. It was a good laugh.

Other than the awesome racing (One) of the best parts was getting to meet Ashley, and the rest of the American Honda Racing team. Up and coming guys like Eli Tomac, Justin Barcia and Will Hahn were at the free shin-dig we were at, so we didn’t have to pay for “pit passes” to go and meet riders at the actual races, which was nice. It let us watch more racing and saved us $15 a pop. Win-Win. I brushed up on some ASL and asked Ashley for an autograph, picture, thanked her and wished her luck. Not going to lie. She seemed impressed. Or maybe that’s my overactive brain trying to make myself look cool. Yeah. It’s probably that.

At the races, there was a couple hour rain delay between half of the motos (individual class races) but the weekend was awesome. James Stewart, one of the fastest (and cockiest) guys went down hard and was out for most of the season, and Ashley went down in her second moto and suffered a fractured tailbone and a moderate concussion. But she came back to win her fourth championship. She’s a beast.

The worst part of the whole weekend was the ten hour drive to and from Denver. Good thing they have a race three hours away from me this year. Utah Nationals, here I come!