At the age of 35 traveling across the country by car just doesn’t seem as appealing to me as it did in my earlier years of filming for MOTO XXX in the late 90′s. Each year it gets more difficult to coordinate shoots with my favorite top riders. Most are busy with tours, demo’s or contests. This year I’ve been fortunate to film with new up and coming riders. A few weeks ago Brody Wilson and I discussed what it would take for him to have his own section in OTP6 “Pack it Up”. We had already filmed in Reche Canyon, Wyvern Ranch, Taft, and Bakersfield, CA. Brody suggested I fly out to meet him and his girlfriend in Montana to film off some sick freeride jumps that Steve Haughelstine and Keith Sayers had built.
From there we would head to Red Deer Canada to film at Craig and Mark Phillips house with Rich Kearns. Following Canada the plan was to head east to Brody’s house for his hometown compound and east coast freeride session. Very rarely does a 2 week road trip go according to plan and this one definitely did not as you are about to read why……I flew out to Butte  Montana on Wednesday August 11th to meet up with Keith Sayers the hometown hero. I rented a car and headed out to meet one of the Og daredevils in freestyle motocross, Reckless Rex. Rex is over 50 now but he can still wheelie better than anyone I know. In fact he did a couple for me with one foot off going down a hill and then up the next hill. In the daredevil dictionary this is known as a “Flamingo”. After hanging with Rex for a day I headed back to Butte to meet up with Keith Sayers and Brody Wilson in hopes of filming off some huge 140 foot freeride jumps. Unfortunately weather would not cooperate with us giving us 20+ mph winds and heavy rain making the jumps not trickable for the next couple days.
We figured we might as well head north to Red Deer Canada to meet up with the Phillips brothers and maybe we would have better luck up there. The weather was better however our bad luck would follow us into Canada. As soon as we arrived we checked out Mark Phillips newly built 200 foot dirt double. This is the biggest tractored dirt to dirt gap I have ever seen. This massive jump measured over 200 feet and it was a straight gap. Unfortunately Mark had crashed just that day in a demo so nobody was going to guinea pig the big dog. The following day Brody Wislon, Craig Phillips and Rich Kearns started sessioning a 120 foot step up in the compound. We were finally getting some shots when out of nowhere Craig Phillips left the compound and headed over to a
freeride jump which he had jumped several times in OTP5. Brody, Rich, and myself were still in the compound. Before any of us could make it over there we watched Craig pin it without any test jumps. What happened next was horrific. His bike died mid air and the forward momentum of the bike started diving nose first. Craig then jumped off the bike and slammed down super hard. He was unconscious when we all got over to him. We immediately called 911 while the chaos unfolded. Craig was rushed to the hospital with major internal inures and bleeding. Prognosis was: bruised kidney, lacerated liver, 8 broken ribs, punctured lung, and several chipped vertebrae. Craig lost so much blood they had to do several blood transfusions and take out his spleen. It was one of the scariest moments I have ever witnessed. The doctors put him in a medically induced coma so they could perform several surgeries.
Craig is a fighter and proved to be stronger than most normal humans and pulled through everything ok. He is still at the hospital in Red Deer recuperating and will live to ride another day.
The following day we drove back east to Brodys house in Templeton Massachusetts. The Wilsons compound is unreal and by far the best setup for fmx on the east coast. With a 3rd gear 120 foot ramp jump, a giant wallride, a ramp to dirt jump double line and another dirt double line, Brodys place is simply unmatched on the east coast. The following afternoon August 22nd in typical Powerband fashion I brought out the r-44 helicopter and got some insane shots of Brody and Rich Kearns. Brody threw out tons of combos like latter to rock solids off the 3rd gear ramp and mcmetz to seatgrabs. Even though we didn’t get the best light we made it work and got some sick tricks captured on my red camera.
The following day we drove 5 hours to New Jersey to meet up with Mark Jordan in Jackson. Mark Jordan is the man behind the classic video “MOTOPIMPS“. He brought us out to a sandpit area that was virtually in Tony Fontanas backyard.  Once again we were fighting crappy, raining conditions. However that didn’t stop Brody from pulling off a clean 1 hand seatgrab to rock solid in the sand pit. Kearns and Tony Fontana through up some roost in a cool bowl. The rain started pouring and we were barely able to pull off a few shots in time. It was time for us to head back to Mass. and get a good nights rest before our final day of shooting. The next morning I packed my bags and got ready to leave to head home for Cali. Before I headed to the airport we made a stop at Robby Marshalls sandpit in Templeton, Mass. Robby Marshall is a racer from Mass (not to be confused with the fmx rider from Australia) and he is as fast as anyone on the Southwick track. He built up the biggest jump on the east coast in his pit. The lip was probably 15 feet tall and the step-up gap was measured at 170 to the safety deck. Of course with my bad luck the weather followed us and blew 15-25mph gusts.
Robby didn’t care about the winds he hucked it over and over for me. Brody wanted this jump in his part so bad he sacked up and pulled off a seatgrab indy in super windy conditions. This jump was 5th gear wide open on Brodys bike and 4th gear tapped on Robby’s. After we sessioned the big dog Robby and Brody through stylish whips off some other jumps Robby had built. This last session turned out to be the best of the entire trip. After we finished the shoot the boys and I ate lunch before I was rushed off to the airport,  just in time to make my flight back to cali.
While I was sitting on my flight I reflected back at my road trip with Brody and realized this kid is cool and has major skills on the bike. He showed me that the east coast does in fact have a freeride scene and its just as cool as the west coast but its almost all sand. When OTP6 comes out everyone in the industry will know Brody Wilson is one bad ass freerider. Special thanks to everyone who helped me on this road trip including: Keith & Danielle Sayers, RJ, Daniel Blair, The Phillips Family (Stan and Laurel), Mickey and Cindy Wilson, Mark Jordan (motopimp), Tony Fontana, Steve Haughlestine and of course Lauren Swanberg and Brody Wilson for putting up with my bad jokes for 2 weeks. I hope Craig Phillips has a speedy recovery and I know he will ride again someday.
OTP6 will be released in November of 2010.
Thanks for reading, and check out some of the Hi Res Photos Below.
-Jay Schweitzer
