Rough Riders

Last month, Jackson and KC's Most Wanted traveled to Florida's Lakeland Drag Strip, midway between Tampa and Orlando, to compete in Stunt Wars, another non-XSBA event.

Sunday says it was one big party, and he loved being around the other riders. But he hadn't practiced or ridden in more than a month, and he struggled with the adjustment to the slick, greasy surface. In the slowest wheelie competition, Sunday went up against two dozen to three dozen top riders, many of whom are consistent top-ten finishers. "We weren't going out there to win, just to get our name out," Sunday says. A day before the competition, he'd seen a rider jump his sport bike off a freestyle motocross ramp. Sunday did the jump himself the next day, sailing a good 15 feet from takeoff to landing.

Still, against the best he didn't compete as well as he had hoped. "Most of my stuff didn't look so good."

Seales struggled, too. He was on a new Honda, and he just never felt comfortable. He says the track was at once too sticky and too slick -- burnouts were practically impossible. On the side streets near the track, he'd been able to combine an Iron Cross wheelie -- a wheelie with his legs spread out to either side -- with a flamingo, but when he got on the track, the surface gave him fits. He couldn't pull the move in competition.

Jackson hadn't ridden since mid-December.

During the Sickest Trick event, he tried to pull off what he calls a switchback rev-limiter burnout. Sitting on the tank facing backward, he locked the front brake and gave so much gas to the rear that his tachometer hit its limit and smoke billowed everywhere. The motorcycle was wide open -- if he had eased off the front brake, the bike would have shot off like a bullet.

But the rear tire, which needs to spin freely against the road, stuck to the asphalt. The bike hopped a few times, then took off in the air at 45 degrees, flipped over and landed nose first on the track. Jackson was thrown in the air backward, feet first. He landed on his knees and arms, but the momentum flipped him onto his feet. He ran toward the crowd, untouched and pumping his fist.

"They probably thought I did it on purpose," he says.

Later, though, Jackson mastered the no-handed stoppie and won the event. He shows off the trophy, but he has hundreds of trophies back in Iowa. For a moment he feigns a kind of indifference to the sport's prospects. He says the events are just places to ride without worrying about the police. "I can go out there and do whatever I want." A moment later, the showman has a more selfless impulse. "If I can go out and make someone's jaw drop, I'm having a good time."

Jackson's bike sits in his garage, next to an old sofa, a motocross bike and a slick blue-and-silver Yamaha. The front end is smashed, and the plastic covering, already broken and stitched together, is beyond repair. The ignition is ruined, too. The repairs will run about $500, he thinks. He looks up at two leather jackets he won last year for qualifying. One is still sheathed in plastic, and neither looks like it's been worn. He'll probably sell them to raise money for repairs. He still hasn't gotten his bike fixed, but he says he'll have it ready for Bike Week.

With less than a month to go before Bike Week, Seales and Sunday are trying to get ready for the return trip to Florida -- and the first time they've been back to Daytona since Herbert was killed a year ago.

Seales wants to make up for his weak showing at Lakeland. His goal for 2003 is to start stringing moves together. He figures he can take on riders who are above him if he can put together a program of moves rather than just a cool trick here and there.

The Web site Stuntlife.com lists Seales as an amateur. Some good showings -- starting at Bike Week -- could get him reclassified as a pro.

Sunday, meanwhile, says he'll have to install a new sprocket to slow the gearing of the bike to compete in longest-stoppie contests. Only in the last month or so has Sunday gotten back on his feet financially. Yet just a few weeks ago, his girlfriend, who also has struggled to make ends meet, sued him for child support. His plan to buy a new truck and set aside some money to compete on the XSBA circuit now must be weighed against the expense of hiring a lawyer.

On a warm February Sunday that smells of spring, KC's Most Wanted practices on Union Street -- a little-used road at the eastern edge of the West Bottoms, next to the train tracks, sandwiched between the viaducts.

Of all the riders in town, 28-year-old Eric Neugebaur looks least likely to take to stunt riding. Tall and gangly, his friends say he came to the sport with neither coordination nor mechanical skills. He didn't start riding motorcycles until he was 24. "He was not that good when he first started," Sunday says. "He scared all of us."