Dirtbike Princess - Meet Ashley Fiolek

Ashley Fiolek has overcome broken bones and total deafness to succeed in the traditionally male sport of motocross.
Up next, another championship - if only she can stop the boys from texting and wild boars messing up her track.

Most of us spend our lives moving in a horizontal plane: walking from house to car, driving from home to work, maybe pedalling a bit on the bike after a day’s work at the office. But two-time women’s motocross champion and reigning X Games Super X gold medallist Ashley Fiolek prefers life on the vertical.

Give her a 250cc motorbike and she’ll climb on and set about finding the biggest dirt hill around to fling herself up and over. Give her a unicycle and she immediately wheels off and starts stunting with confident bunny hops. Give her a bowling ball and just before she hucks it down the lane, she finishes her approach with a quick, bouncy skip.

Fiolek turns and smiles at the crowd that’s assembled to watch her bowl at Florida’s Anastasia Lanes in St Augustine, USA. Deaf since birth, she attended the nearby Florida School for The Deaf & The Blind and is something of a local celebrity.

"That’s the secret!" she signs. "Jumping!" Admittedly, Fiolek’s bowling technique sends her cell phone skittering out of her pocket into one gutter and the ball into the opposite one. Her goal on the day is to break a score of 100 - an aim-low target that makes her mother, Roni, a former league bowler, sigh disconsolately.

But catching air is where the 20-year-old is most comfortable. There are other rivals besides gravity that Fiolek must vanquish en route to attempting to regain her title when the motocross season starts in May. First and foremost, there’s six-time women’s motocross champ Jessica Patterson, who took the title back from Fiolek during the 2010 season. 

But a day spent with Fiolek as she trains reveals an array of foes including ghosts, and lovelorn boys.

Fiolek is in the bedroom of her house in St Augustine - it’s her first home of her own. She completed the purchase the same day as winning X Games gold last summer, and she’s showing how the ghost communicates with her.

Standing in front of a lavender-coloured wall in her bedroom, she signs that she will be in bed when the door to the adjacent bathroom will suddenly slam closed.

"We keep telling her it’s the vent," says Roni Fiolek. "But she’s named the ghost Fred." Fred, by all accounts, seems to be a benevolent spirit. And he could also be wreaking havoc with the electricity, as today the flashing light that tells Fiolek when someone rings her doorbell is on the fritz.

But she still seems quite content in her new home. She has a training room upstairs with cardio equipment and free weights: her schedule is to mimic what she does on race day by getting up at 7.30am, making breakfast, reading for a while and then working out.

"I started a new training programme this year," she says. "I increased my strength and my cardio, and I’m working with my dad again as my coach. I didn’t work with him for a couple years - it’s hard because he’s my dad and it’s difficult to separate that. But he’s the
only guy I can really understand."

Jim Fiolek was an amateur motocrosser who introduced his daughter to the sport when she was three, on a Yamaha with training wheels.

She was racing competitively by age seven, with Jim teaching her when to change up or down gears by judging the feel of them rumbling. (Her participation worried other parents, who feared Ashley wouldn’t hear their children approach to pass and she would crash into them.

As it turned out, her competitors didn’t find themselves in a position to pass her very often.) Driving by sensation is a technique she still uses, and when Fiolek was asked to coast in neutral for a recent commercial shoot, she confessed that it’s the hardest thing for her to do on a bike.

After a 2010 season where Fiolek finished second in the WMX series to Patterson and struggled with her motivation as she attempted to catch up with Patterson, now she’s renewed her focus on the rivalry. "Me and Jessica, we both work really hard," says Fiolek. "I want my title back. She wants to keep it. But I think I’m ready this year."

For her part, Patterson is just as eager to resume her rivalry with Fiolek. "Not winning races isn’t very fun," she says. "I think that’s why we both keep pushing each other to that next level."

It’s a competition that helps the women’s side of the sport, which has suffered in exposure due to erratic TV coverage in recent years. "The greatest challenge, which is a challenge for most women’s sports, is getting media coverage of the racing and more of the racers," says Miki Keller, founder of the Women’s Motocross Association and X Games Women’s Super X Director.

"A TV package for the WMX Nationals would help the athletes get more support deeper in the field." In February, Fiolek extended her contract with the American Honda Racing factory team for two years, giving her a bit of breathing space.

"Last year I was so stressed about, ‘What if I lost? What would happen?’" she says. "And I think this year it kind of helps me because it gives me more confidence to know that I’m signed."

Enough confidence, perhaps, to strive for a big goal: Fiolek has her eye on qualifying for a men’s motocross national race in the 250cc class. "I want to be the first woman to do that," she says. "My fans are telling me I can do it." Besides her spot on the factory Honda team, there is another worry off Fiolek’s mind.

With Fiolek’s back-to-back wins in the X Games, her popularity has gone up. Besides Red Bull and Honda, her sponsors include Rockwell, which designed a hot pink watch for Fiolek, and moto fashion brand Smooth Industries made motocross-style Fiolek pyjamas.

She’s made the transition from teen athlete to businesswoman, and as her profile increases, so does interest in her personal life - after all, a quick route to stardom is being at the top in

your field and looking like a bad-ass, mud-covered Dakota Fanning. She coyly alludes to dating fellow Red Bull athlete, BMX rider Daniel Dhers, in her autobiography, Kicking Up Dirt, and she’s a frequent target of yenta-esque manoeuvres by the mothers of other extreme athletes.

Fiolek isn’t giving anything away though: "I keep getting phone numbers, but there’s nobody serious," she laughs.

Roni Fiolek laughs as her daughter describes playing the field. "Last week was bad because she worked from 7am to 6pm every day, so we were in bed by 9pm," says Roni.

"All the boys she talks to were mad at her, saying, ‘Why doesn’t she text me?’ and she’s like, ‘I’m busy - I have a job.’"

Ashley interrupts her mom, giggles and gives off-the-cuff advice to would-be Romeos: "If you don’t like me, just move on. I don’t need you."

Back at the bowling alley, Fiolek is close, tantalisingly close, to breaking 100. Her form gets a little more traditional; even with the hop at the end of her motion she focuses more on her back swing and is experimenting with adding some spin to the ball.

In one glorious turn, it all comes together: she glides down the alley, pops up, and gives the ball just enough of a heave to send it dead centre down the middle of the lane.

The pins clatter as she achieves her first strike of the session. 'BOOYAH!' Fiolek yells and, of course, she then leaps into the air to celebrate.

Read the full interview in this month’s Red Bulletin available from 2nd April at www.redbulletin.com

Ashley Fiolek has overcome broken bones and total deafness to succeed in the traditionally male sport of motocross.
Up next, another championship - if only she can stop the boys from texting and wild boars messing up her track.

Most of us spend our lives moving in a horizontal plane: walking from house to car, driving from home to work, maybe pedalling a bit on the bike after a day’s work at the office. But two-time women’s motocross champion and reigning X Games Super X gold medallist Ashley Fiolek prefers life on the vertical.

Give her a 250cc motorbike and she’ll climb on and set about finding the biggest dirt hill around to fling herself up and over. Give her a unicycle and she immediately wheels off and starts stunting with confident bunny hops. Give her a bowling ball and just before she hucks it down the lane, she finishes her approach with a quick, bouncy skip.

Fiolek turns and smiles at the crowd that’s assembled to watch her bowl at Florida’s Anastasia Lanes in St Augustine, USA. Deaf since birth, she attended the nearby Florida School for The Deaf & The Blind and is something of a local celebrity.

"That’s the secret!" she signs. "Jumping!" Admittedly, Fiolek’s bowling technique sends her cell phone skittering out of her pocket into one gutter and the ball into the opposite one. Her goal on the day is to break a score of 100 - an aim-low target that makes her mother, Roni, a former league bowler, sigh disconsolately.

But catching air is where the 20-year-old is most comfortable. There are other rivals besides gravity that Fiolek must vanquish en route to attempting to regain her title when the motocross season starts in May. First and foremost, there’s six-time women’s motocross champ Jessica Patterson, who took the title back from Fiolek during the 2010 season. 

But a day spent with Fiolek as she trains reveals an array of foes including ghosts, and lovelorn boys.

Fiolek is in the bedroom of her house in St Augustine - it’s her first home of her own. She completed the purchase the same day as winning X Games gold last summer, and she’s showing how the ghost communicates with her.

Standing in front of a lavender-coloured wall in her bedroom, she signs that she will be in bed when the door to the adjacent bathroom will suddenly slam closed.

"We keep telling her it’s the vent," says Roni Fiolek. "But she’s named the ghost Fred." Fred, by all accounts, seems to be a benevolent spirit. And he could also be wreaking havoc with the electricity, as today the flashing light that tells Fiolek when someone rings her doorbell is on the fritz.

But she still seems quite content in her new home. She has a training room upstairs with cardio equipment and free weights: her schedule is to mimic what she does on race day by getting up at 7.30am, making breakfast, reading for a while and then working out.

"I started a new training programme this year," she says. "I increased my strength and my cardio, and I’m working with my dad again as my coach. I didn’t work with him for a couple years - it’s hard because he’s my dad and it’s difficult to separate that. But he’s the
only guy I can really understand."

Jim Fiolek was an amateur motocrosser who introduced his daughter to the sport when she was three, on a Yamaha with training wheels.

She was racing competitively by age seven, with Jim teaching her when to change up or down gears by judging the feel of them rumbling. (Her participation worried other parents, who feared Ashley wouldn’t hear their children approach to pass and she would crash into them.

As it turned out, her competitors didn’t find themselves in a position to pass her very often.) Driving by sensation is a technique she still uses, and when Fiolek was asked to coast in neutral for a recent commercial shoot, she confessed that it’s the hardest thing for her to do on a bike.

After a 2010 season where Fiolek finished second in the WMX series to Patterson and struggled with her motivation as she attempted to catch up with Patterson, now she’s renewed her focus on the rivalry. "Me and Jessica, we both work really hard," says Fiolek. "I want my title back. She wants to keep it. But I think I’m ready this year."

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