Jolene Van Vugt Talks 'Nitro Circus,' Injuries and New 'MX vs. ATV' Game

Jolene Van Vugt is a motocross national champion and the first female to backflip a full-sized dirt-bike, but you might know her from being "Nitro Girl" on the hit MTV show, Nitro Circus.

FanHouse recently spoke to the Canadian motocross star about the show, succeeding in a male-dominated sport and the new MX vs. ATV Reflex game, which hit stores earlier this month.

Ariel Helwani: I noticed on your Twitter feed that you are quite the world traveler these days. So where are you right now?
Jolene Van Vugt: I'm actually up home in Canada -- I'm in Calgary for some of our downtime. I've actually gone back to my old job that I used to have. I used to work at a dirt bike store doing some merchandising there. So I took a week and decided to go back to work (laughs).

So you are only back working for one week?
Yeah, I just do the merchandising in the store. So I just rearrange the look of the store for them occasionally.

Is it weird for an MTV star to go back to their old job of rearranging merchandise in a dirt bike store?
(Laughs) I guess it can be ... but not for me. I really enjoy the work and the people there are super nice, and that dirt bike shop has really helped me out throughout all the years with racing and I've been racing with them for a long time. It's just something I like to do so I went back. I get to play in the store and make things look pretty and change everything all around. I don't know, I quite enjoy it. It's relaxing almost; it's different from the hectic life I'm used to.

Do some of your fans stop by the store just to say hello to you?
I don't think most people generally know that I'm there still. I've had people this week kind of stumble in and say, 'Hey, are you Jolene?' And I'm like, 'Yeah.' And they say, 'You work here?' Kind of just super surprised. But I don't think anybody knows that I'm there (laughs).

Due to your involvement on Nitro Circus, it seems as though your popularity has really grown over the past year. How has your life changed since then?
I don't have as much downtime as I used to have. It's just gotten a lot busier. I've always been pretty busy with training and traveling and racing and competing and stuff like that, but it's almost gotten even more hectic just because when you travel around you do some personal appearances and some signings, sometimes we have premieres, and then we go from filming Nitro Circus stuff. But it's just been a lot of fun. I mean, it's sort of a whirlwind and it's all happening pretty quickly with the television show. I mean, racing for me, I've been around it for so long, and Nitro Circus, that's been around for seven years, and I've been around it for five, and it's all stuff we've been working on for a really, really long time. But the television show happened so quickly, and we did two seasons in one year, so it was just a lot of craziness but definitely an awesome experience.

Have you begun filming a third season?
No, we're still waiting to get a go date for that one to start filming.

Will there definitely be a third season?
We're not sure. They haven't guaranteed us a third season yet. We're just waiting and we've moved right into our next project: Nitro Circus is going to start doing live arena shows in Australia next year. So for six weeks, we're going to do two shows a weekend. So we've already started doing our training and planning and choreographing what is going to happen for that already.

When you train for these events or shows, do you only train on the bike or do you do other exercises?
No, all cross sport training. I workout in the gym; I do cardio; I lift weights to stay strong. No matter what I'm doing, be it racing, jumping, Nitro Circus or any other kind of stunt, it's all very physically demanding for me, so I have to stay fit and strong just to be able to keep going and take the hits and stay at a fairly good level. So I do that type obviously in the gym and then we do training going out and riding.

How do avoid seriously injuring yourself when you are training while riding because it's not like you can practice flips at half speed?
It's definitely difficult. Trying not to get injured is obviously the first thing on our minds. You know, we want to stay healthy so that we can keep going, but you always want to put yourself out there and put 100% into everything that you're doing. Unfortunately, I experienced one of those situations this year in between filming season two. We had a slight break for Travis [Pastrana] and I to train for X Games. I had qualified as one of 10 women to race at the women's super cross at X Games this year, and we were training at Travis' house. In the morning, I was in the gym doing my cardio, lifting and in the afternoon I was riding on the track, getting dialed in. And unfortunately one day, I cased one of the 65-foot supercross triples and snapped my wrist on impact. So I was out for X Games because of the injury and I had to kind of sit on the sidelines for a few episodes of season two.

What's the worst injury you've ever sustained?
I've had a few bad ones -- I've had multiple surgeries. But the worst one I've probably ever had for total body was, I think it was about three or four years ago now, I had a crash at one of the women Canadian national races, and I landed right on my head and broke my wrist in three places and I had severe reverse whiplash for a while and compressed my neck.

Have you ever asked yourself if putting your body through that kind of pain was worth the trouble?
It's actually pretty sad because I've never really thought that way. My mentality is that once I get injured, I try to get better as fast as I can, so I can get back to what I was doing before because an injury is more or less a setback and a pain in the butt. So for me it's just wanting the injury to go away as fast as possible because I enjoy what I do so much, I just want to get back to doing it.

You make your living in male-dominated sport, what's it like being the only female around sometimes?
The guys definitely accept me for who I am. Most of the time they just treat me like one of the guys and they tend to forget that I'm a girl. I would never want it any other way. I don't want any special treatment.

So you've never had to deal with any uncomfortable situations?
Not with Nitro Circus, no. I mean, everybody is treated equally. If someone wants to go for a stunt, they go for it. If someone doesn't want to go for a stunt, they don't go for it. It's not a matter of, 'Oh, Jolene should do this one, she's a girl.' It's pretty equal.

Let's talk about the video game. Why will this second edition of the game be better than the first?
They've done many improvements from the last video game and they've come so far with changing the way the game works. In the new game they have what they call "rider reflex control," and what that system is, for once in a motocross video game you can move the rider independently from the dirt bike. In most video games, if you turn left or right then everything moves -- the bike and the person -- in that one direction. With this video game, you're able to actually ride it true to form. You can move your body and your positioning with the handle bars or you can just move the dirt bike. It's completely new to video games and pretty cool if you are a motocross fan.

The other new feature is the "terrain deformation," which is, especially when you are training with the pros in the national tracks, the dirt gets dug up and the track you left the last time you did your first lap is there when you come around. So the track gets dug up and gets really rough just like a real a motocross track. So those are two new things that they've done to improve the game that are pretty neat. And if you need more information on the video game, they have a Web site that you can go to, which is MXvsATV.com, and there's clips kind of explaining the new features of the video game. They have me on there as a spokesperson for the game giving you tutorials on the many features.

Wow, I am impressed. You really sold that well. That pitch actually made we want to play the game right now.
(Laughs) I'm trying! I've been talking about this game for a long time!

I can see that. Usually when you ask an athlete about a game they are a part of they give you a one-liner about how it's fun.
(Laughs) Thanks. They've had me talking about the game for a while and I've got to play it and I'm in it, so that's kind of cool. Plus I've done a lot promotional stuff for it, so I know it pretty well.



Do you enjoy playing video games?
I do. I enjoy motocross, snowboard and skateboard video games. I don't really branch out into anything else, other than Tetris (laughs).

Do you like to play as yourself in the game?
No, not with this video game. Right now, I'm not actually a chosen player. You can pick James Stewart, Ryan Villopoto, Josh Grant, but I'm actually just a competitor racer. So once you get on that line and they gate drops, I'm just someone that races against you.

So they make you do all the promotional work but couldn't include you in the roster of riders to choose from? That doesn't seem fair.
(Laughs) Hopefully next year they'll put me in it ...

Is there any kind of rivalry between motocross and ATV racers?
Not that I'm aware of. I mean, I know just from growing up with motocrossers there can be some rivals within the two, but nothing that I'm 100% sure of.

Have you tried ATV racing?
I've tried it before. I mean, I've obviously rode an ATV around, but I actually raced ATV once on a course in Florida and I almost killed myself. So I'll stick to two wheels. Jumping the four-wheeler is a little more narly.

Since you are the first female racer to land a backflip on a full-sized dirt bike, do you have any more tricks planned for your fans in the future?
Maybe. There's always those possibilities and there's lots of other things that I would like to venture into as the doors keep opening for me. There's nothing set right now, though. The thing that we have to look forward to where we will be doing freestyle and back flips is the Australia live tour.

How about a double backflip?
(Laughs) No, I don't know if I'm really that one that can pull of a double backflip.

You also tweeted recently that you got a new tattoo. Any special significance to it?
Yeah, I got an anchor on my foot. I just really like the traditional style and I just wanted to have something to show being grounded, I guess.

Is it important for you to keep reminding yourself of that?
I think I have enough people in my life that I've grown up with that are there to keep me in check. I don't believe that I'm the type of person that it's going to get away from me, but I have a great family, great friends, my boyfriend and everybody is around me all the time. I love coming home to normalcy and reality -- it's pretty neat. It keeps me happy.