About Bird
Even though he later lost touch with him completely, it was his father who bought Bird his first Dirt-Bike and showed him how to ride it.
Soon every afternoon was spent riding.
Growing up in the Taft, Ca area provided him with endless terrain for jumps in the sandy hills and mountain ranges of this old-time oil country.
As a teenager he became good at building all kinds of different jumps and landing areas by moving and compacting one of the countless sand hills on the property and then testing them out with his buddies.
Sometime the idea of a big dream formed in his head.
Or maybe a long dream..
A dream about flying on his motor cycle..
About a giant ramp..
A dream about the longest motor cycle jump EVER..!
And so his quest began to make this dream come true.
Working in the oil fields provided him with some spending money for the next step and after working as a mechanic on a bike that ran in the Super Cross circuit, he started little by little to design and build the ramp that would eventually launch him into the world record books of long jumping.(pictures of the ramp)
An unsuccessful attempt ended in a crash when he hastily tried to get the jump in anyway, after being told by the BLM people that he had to take down the ramp.
The Honolulu Raceway management invited him to their property for all subsequent testing and jumps.
Soon he was busy doing what he knew to do; moving mountains of dirt.
With his girlfriend Sonya he spent countless hours digging and scraping and grooming the hill that is now the landing ramp for the long distance jumps.
Bit by bit, interrupted only by the occasional gig or work on the nearby Honolulu Racetrack for some cash, the ramp and landing hill took shape and test jumps began.
You can hear more about the process in Bird's own words in the video clip Bird's Promo Video .
To this day, without being seriously sponsored, he keeps following and building his dream.
One step
closer to completion is the setting up of an 'official world record attempt', a day with Reps from the Guinness Book of World Records present and all cameras rolling.
(Check Bird's Blog for current updates on that)
May the wind die so we can see Bird fly...
The 400' mark is up for grabs.
Online articles about Bird:
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