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The Daily Wildcat

The Daily Wildcat

 

    Nitro Circus Live flips its way into Tucson

    Promotional+banner+for+Nitro+Circus+Live.
    Nitro Circus
    Promotional banner for Nitro Circus Live.

    Get ready for an exciting Saturday night as Nitro Circus Live, a crazy collection of action sports, comes to the Tucson Rodeo Grounds for the beginning of its North American tour.

    Nitro Circus began with a couple of extreme athletes, most notably Travis Pastrana, simply making YouTube videos and DVDs about the insanely dangerous stunts they were performing in Pastrana’s house. From there, action sports exploded onto the scene, and eventually led to the creation of Nitro Circus as a live performance, touring across the world for fans that were more than excited to witness the complete insanity of these athletes live.

    One of Nitro Circus’ motocross performers, Javier Villegas, said that there is no one part of the experience at Nitro Circus that is more outstanding than another. “Everything is pretty ridiculous,” Villegas said.

    This action-packed tour offers everything from athletes doing backflips with 200-pound dirt bikes, skateboarders and bikers performing tricks more than 30 feet in the air and even a brave man doing more twists than you can count on a scooter — that’s right, the very same and dangerous-enough-already method of transportation you used to get around the neighborhood in your elementary years.

    “Everything we do is equally insane,” Villegas said, highlighting the fact that he himself is one of those athletes that can completely let go of his bike midair, do a flip and still somehow manage to land back on the bike as it hits the ground.

    So what makes these athletes do such reckless things?

    “It’s really hard to explain,” Villegas said. “The simple answer would be: I don’t see myself doing anything else in the world.”

    So don’t fret if your explanation for getting your degree falls in the same line of reasoning, because you can become someone like Villegas, living out his dream of doing something he loves, despite the danger involved.

    “You get the chance to do something that no one else will do,” he said.

    Despite the fact that action sports are notoriously dangerous, Villegas himself stated that he has been injury-free for over a year.

    “It depends on how much you push your luck and how much you take care of yourself,” Villegas said, adding that taking care of his health is one of his top priorities.

    Although these athletes are always pushing themselves to improve their old tricks, they do know their boundaries, so you most likely won’t see anyone get injured Saturday night. They are professional death-defiers, after all.

    Much like it was a decade ago when Nitro Circus finally became a live performance, action sports and motocross are only increasing in popularity from both an athletic and an audience perspective.

    “It’s becoming more accessible for people to try [motocross],” Villegas said.

    And even if people are not necessarily jumping their dirt bikes at some ridiculous height, an increasing number of riders are able to master some of the more basic tricks and smaller jumps.

    “It’s become more of a science now — we know what we have to do to get these tricks,” Villegas said. He said after years of perfecting his craft, tricks are not only easier to perform, but safer as well.

    But perhaps the best part of Nitro Circus is the crowd itself.

    “Seeing all the people going crazy and cheering your name and asking for more even though we’re already done; that has to be my favorite part,” Villegas said. “You go home thinking, ‘What can we show them next?’”

    Interested in going? Visit Nitro Circus Live’s website for ticket information.


    Follow Monica Kothe on Twitter.


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