Howdy Yardbarker diehards, my name is Mike Mason and I am a Freestyle moto guy. I'm here to keep you guys filled in on my world. This is my first post on YB so I figured I would use it to introduce myself and my sport if many of you aren't familiar with it, so here goes.
I started riding dirtbikes when I was five years old, thanks to my pop's who at the time was heavily involved in the motorcycle scene. He has been taking me to all the races since I first can remember, and ever since I was a 5 year old kid I knew I wanted to ride a motorcycle for the rest of my life, regardless of making it as a professional or not. When I was 17 I decided to turn pro, the sport was starting to take its toll on my family as everything became more expensive as I became better. I was traveling more, breaking bikes often, and entry fees had become too expensive. Turning pro I knew I could at least make 400-700.00 a weekend locally and much more than that at the bigger races so that would help out a lot. I caught my first big break in a series that tours the states in all the major arenas. They had racing and a best trick competition, which was perfect for me because I loved racing, but also messed around with doing tricks in my spare time. It was mainly racers who did the best trick comp and they never had much in the way of tricks, so I was pretty much set to make a thousand bucks a week just from that plus whatever prize money I made from racing, so things were looking good!! Of course with our sport like any sport comes injury, and 2002 seemed to be my year for everything to catch me at once! I had torn some ligaments in my shoulder which caused it to dislocate constantly and I also tore my ACL so my knee would dislocate from time to time. I decided just to fix my shoulder since it was bothering me more at the time. Surgery and rehab went perfect on my shoulder and I was back riding just four months after surgery. The bad news is that 6 months after my shoulder surgery I came up short on a jump at a Freestyle show in Milan, Italy and ruined my knee for good. Back to surgery it was and with a ACL its not quick. It took me about 7 months to recover and get to a 100%. At this point I was pretty much off my bike for a year and when I came back I had lost the drive and desire to keep racing. I was dead broke, my body was feeling beat up, and my mind was not into it. Right around the time all this happend my best friend had bought 7 acres and made a freestyle course on it. I decided to go out and ride with him and just mess around, not take anything to serious and just have some fun riding again. Well it ended up being the best time of my life, hitting new jumps and learning new tricks daily made me motivated to ride again, I decided to focus 100% of my efforts into FMX (freestyle motocross). After my first year I had a good bag of tricks and the backflip, which was pretty much key if you wanted a career in FMX. In 2005, just my second full year I finished third overall in the Dew action sports tour, which is basically the second biggest FMX contest next to ESPN's X games. In 2006 I won some Europe contests, finished second overall in the Dew action sports with one win on the season, and earned my first X games medal, a bronze, in my first apperance! Life was good and I had finally started to see my life long dream become a reality. Like anything good though there is going to be some bad times, in 2006 during my success, I also broke my collerbone, knocked myself out a couple times and tore my other ACL, so once again I was feeling beat up. I went into 2007 not feeling like myself and constantly worrying about my knee. I managed to get another third overall in the Dew action sports tour, but that was pretty much the only highlight of 07'. I decided to take some time off, get my knee fixed and let my body heal up and feel good for 08'.
It is now 2008, the contests and demos are underway and once again I am feeling healthy and ready to make a comeback and get back to the top. As I type this I am in Australia doing a 10 week tour and the day after I get home from here I fly to Baltimore to start the Dew tour again. I will be posting frequently and keeping you all updated on cool stories or parties or hot girls, whatever it may be that I come across over here!!! Hope my story didn't bore you too bad, because I am not a very good typer so that took pretty much every ounce of brain power I had!! Take care and stay tuned!!!
I started riding dirtbikes when I was five years old, thanks to my pop's who at the time was heavily involved in the motorcycle scene. He has been taking me to all the races since I first can remember, and ever since I was a 5 year old kid I knew I wanted to ride a motorcycle for the rest of my life, regardless of making it as a professional or not. When I was 17 I decided to turn pro, the sport was starting to take its toll on my family as everything became more expensive as I became better. I was traveling more, breaking bikes often, and entry fees had become too expensive. Turning pro I knew I could at least make 400-700.00 a weekend locally and much more than that at the bigger races so that would help out a lot. I caught my first big break in a series that tours the states in all the major arenas. They had racing and a best trick competition, which was perfect for me because I loved racing, but also messed around with doing tricks in my spare time. It was mainly racers who did the best trick comp and they never had much in the way of tricks, so I was pretty much set to make a thousand bucks a week just from that plus whatever prize money I made from racing, so things were looking good!! Of course with our sport like any sport comes injury, and 2002 seemed to be my year for everything to catch me at once! I had torn some ligaments in my shoulder which caused it to dislocate constantly and I also tore my ACL so my knee would dislocate from time to time. I decided just to fix my shoulder since it was bothering me more at the time. Surgery and rehab went perfect on my shoulder and I was back riding just four months after surgery. The bad news is that 6 months after my shoulder surgery I came up short on a jump at a Freestyle show in Milan, Italy and ruined my knee for good. Back to surgery it was and with a ACL its not quick. It took me about 7 months to recover and get to a 100%. At this point I was pretty much off my bike for a year and when I came back I had lost the drive and desire to keep racing. I was dead broke, my body was feeling beat up, and my mind was not into it. Right around the time all this happend my best friend had bought 7 acres and made a freestyle course on it. I decided to go out and ride with him and just mess around, not take anything to serious and just have some fun riding again. Well it ended up being the best time of my life, hitting new jumps and learning new tricks daily made me motivated to ride again, I decided to focus 100% of my efforts into FMX (freestyle motocross). After my first year I had a good bag of tricks and the backflip, which was pretty much key if you wanted a career in FMX. In 2005, just my second full year I finished third overall in the Dew action sports tour, which is basically the second biggest FMX contest next to ESPN's X games. In 2006 I won some Europe contests, finished second overall in the Dew action sports with one win on the season, and earned my first X games medal, a bronze, in my first apperance! Life was good and I had finally started to see my life long dream become a reality. Like anything good though there is going to be some bad times, in 2006 during my success, I also broke my collerbone, knocked myself out a couple times and tore my other ACL, so once again I was feeling beat up. I went into 2007 not feeling like myself and constantly worrying about my knee. I managed to get another third overall in the Dew action sports tour, but that was pretty much the only highlight of 07'. I decided to take some time off, get my knee fixed and let my body heal up and feel good for 08'.
It is now 2008, the contests and demos are underway and once again I am feeling healthy and ready to make a comeback and get back to the top. As I type this I am in Australia doing a 10 week tour and the day after I get home from here I fly to Baltimore to start the Dew tour again. I will be posting frequently and keeping you all updated on cool stories or parties or hot girls, whatever it may be that I come across over here!!! Hope my story didn't bore you too bad, because I am not a very good typer so that took pretty much every ounce of brain power I had!! Take care and stay tuned!!!
Vote this post up or down:
