Wheels in the sky keep on turning
New Nitro Circus will feature ‘riders pushing their own boundaries’
Action sports legend Travis Pastrana, founder and ringleader of Nitro Circus, is proud of what his group of “mad scientists” came up with for Sunday night’s show at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie.
Nitro Circus will debut its “Good, Bad and Rad” show at 7 p.m. at the stadium that is home to the Double-A Bowie Baysox and located just over the Anne Arundel County line. Ryan “R Willy” Williams and Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham headline a long list of athletes who will “throw down on a dynamic stage set that offers fans a better view of the action,” the press release said.
Williams and Fotheringham were among a group of athletes who met with Nitro Circus ramp designer and builder Nate Wessel at Pastrana’s compound in Davidsonville for about three weeks to nail down particulars about the new show.
Pastrana said the athletes ultimately decide the heights of ramps, types of stunts and other innovations to be incorporated into the Nitro Circus tour.
“It’s a company run by the athletes. That’s the difference between Nitro Circus and X Games,” Pastrana said. “Our riders are always pushing the envelope and thinking of ways to progress. What ideas do we have and how can we make them work?”
Pastrana said Wessel had to build new ramps and a 35-foot-high platform to accommodate what the riders wanted to do as part of “Good, Bad and Rad.” Longtime fans will get to see many of the traditional stunts that
have made Nitro Circus famous around the world, but will then be treated to the latest and greatest maneuvers.
“You need to think of the show in two halves. The first half is all the stunts the riders know they can perform, all the skits the crowd has always loved,” Pastrana said. “The second half is the riders pushing their own boundaries and maybe the boundaries of what has ever been done before. That is when we experiment with new tricks and stunts.”
Pastrana, who grew up in Annapolis, is fully focused on Rally Car racing these days and has an event in New Hampshire this weekend. The Anne Arundel County Sports Hall of Famer is not performing on the current Nitro Circus tour, which consists of 26 shows throughout the United States
and Canada.
Williams, Fotheringham and freestyle motocross athletes such as Gregg Duffy and Harry Bink are now the hottest stars.
Williams, an Australian native, is a freestyle scooter and BMX bicycle rider with 1.6 million YouTube subscribers. A seventime gold medalist at X Games, the 27-yearold Queensland resident recently signed a three-year contract worth $1 million with Nitro Circus.
“R Willy is the greatest action sports rider in the world right now. He is just a phenomenal talent who is next level in every respect,” Pastrana said.
Williams is a very engaging performer and always spends considerable time signing autographs while chatting with fans. “R Willy goes the extra mile to entertain the fans. He’s been a huge asset for Nitro Circus in particular and action sports in general,” Pastrana said.
Williams led the charge on the new ramp setup despite getting some pushback from some of the other athletes. Pastrana joked that Williams might have put a few colleagues into retirement by insisting on higher platforms.
“A lot of people were saying, ‘it’s too big, it’s too dangerous, it’s too scary,’” Pastrana said; “R Willy kept saying go higher, go bigger, go further.”
Fotheringham was born with spina bifida and underwent several surgeries as a young child. The Las Vegas native started riding his wheelchair at the local skate park and was soon turning all sorts of tricks.
Fotheringham has taken things to a new level since joining Nitro Circus, becoming the first person in the world to pull off a double backflip in a wheelchair. The 30-year-old recently gained more popularity by reaching the finals of “America’s Got Talent Extreme,” a television show of which Pastrana is a cast member along with Simon Cowell, Terry Crews and Nikka Bella.
“I think the popularity of Wheelz really took off because of what he did on ‘America’s Got Talent.’ After watching that, a lot of people have been asking about Aaron and wanting to meet him,” Pastrana said. “Aaron is such a talented and inspirational person. He has turned a disability into something great.”
Bink and Duffy, the 2020 and 2017 world champions, respectively, headline an impressive list of freestyle motocross performers. Jarryd McNeil, who has nine X Games gold medals, is renowned for completing dangerous jumps completely upside down. Kassie Boone, the world’s most exciting new female rider, will reportedly perform a backflip off the highest ramp ever used for FMX.