Jolene Van Vugt Hits the Nitro Circus 3 Premiere
NOVEMBER 24, 2005

Our assistant designer here at Racer X Canada sure has been moonlighting a lot lately. She joins her father, Bill Van Vugt (former Loretta Lynn’s Champ), every weekend to hit races all over Canada and last year started to take long weekend breaks to race a few WMA nationals in the USA. This year, she even skipped a couple of Ontario provincials (forfeiting her chances of a fourth title) to race the WMA events on the West coast.

Well, her long weekend stints didn’t seem to curtail her high-energy persona so we weren’t too surprised when she told us that she might stop by Travis Pastrana’s house with Jessica Foster, Sarah Whitmore and Katie Auten between WMA races.

Our attitudes changed however when she called on her way to Steel City and said that she had backflipped a 110 to dirt! I was busy posting the news on our website (she later gave me crap for it) while Jason frantically reviewed our health insurance policy (it was a quick review since we don’t have one).

That experience lit a fire (like she needed more energy) under Jolene and all she could talk about now was going back to flip her RM125. We were proud of our young designer but worried at the same time so we cautiously bid adieu to Jolene and her brother Billy as they made a second trip to Pastrana’s house for the RM125 backflip.

Well, not only did Jolene become the first female to flip a full-sized bike ramp to dirt, her brother Billy (an accomplished freestyler) did it as well! So, they broke two records in Maryland—the first girl and the first brother/sister combo! Travis was so impressed that he added Jolene and Billy into his Nitro Circus 3 video and flew both of them to the premiere.

She did it and even got an Ogio ad out of the deal. Check out the January '06 Racer X Canada for a double page pictorial on her two failed attempts and her successful jump.

 

I’ll turn it over to Jolene for a few photos and captions…

A bunch of us gathered at Travis' house before the show and then headed down to the theatre. We showed up at the premiere and there was a pretty large line-up to get in, all waiting to see Nitro Circus 3.

 

Travis signed autographs and hung out with this friends and fans.

 

I even signed some autographs!

 

Then we went into the theatre and Travis and his gang played some games and gave out a ton of prizes.

 

This is Hubert, one of Travis' roommates and mechanics. They call him Tennessee in the video.

 

Then there is Mr. Tom P (Street Bike Tommy) with the crazy purple horn hat on. Very fun bunch of people to hangout with.

 

There were lots of race fans, I even caught a little girl with one of
my friends and fellow WMA racers jerseys on: #14 Kaide Garrett.

 

It was a full house. Travis introduced Tommy, Hubert and I to the
audience and then they ran the 45min video. It was awesome, crazy, stupid, fun with crashes, races and tricks of all kinds. Including Travis' Double backflip which I think got the most cheers and the opening which got the biggest oooohhhhh! You'll know what I mean when you see it. One of the other parts of the video that got quite a good cheer out of the audience was my landing of the backflip. Pretty cool. The video is awesome.

 

After the video was over, Travis gave out some more swag and signed more autographs. Then we headed to the after party and Billy rode out in style with Street Bike Tommy in a Hummer.
Hubert, Travis and I headed out in Travis' super fast
Subaru.

 

It was tons of fun and I had a great time. Travis gave it a thumbs up.

 

For more information on Nitro Circus 3, check out godfreyfilms.com and if you are coming to Toronto for the World Supercross on December 3rd, get your tickets for the Canadian premiere party on Saturday night after the race. See the details below and go to ticketweb.com or the retailers indicated on the posters for tickets. See you there!