As cool as it is to watch both men and women race around a dirt track on a motorcycle or fly through the air doing unbelievable stunts all while maintaining control of the bike, it amazes me that these people have the intestinal fortitude to do this in the first place. 

I realize that the majority of the people in this sport have been doing it probably for most of their lives, some maybe before they could even walk, but just as with anything else in life, at one point they had to do it for the first time.

Can anyone tell me that the first time that these men or women decided to run a motorcycle up a ramp and fly through the air and do a handstand on the bike as it flies through the air that they were perfectly calm and one hundred percent confident in themselves?

I think not! They must be running on pure adrenalin, and in my opinion, they all have a screw loose and are not playing with a full deck. I mean come on, you have to be just a bit crazy to not only want to do this with a motorcycle, but to actually do it.  I would think you have to be totally crazy.

Even just the riders that race around a track and do not even do the jumps and the airborne acrobatics in my opinion are just a sudden change in the weather away from the funny farm and looking over their shoulders for the men in the white coats.

Cruising around a dirt track or worse on a muddy track at high speeds along with 10-20 other riders, mud flying up in your face, and the possibility that you could be seriously injured or even killed at any moment is just a touch loony. It makes me think that they have always been crazy, but getting on the bike in the first place must have kept them from going insane.

Besides the fact that any person would have to be at least slightly crazy to do this, they have to be in tiptop physical shape in order to compete and even survive in motocross.

According to Wikipedia, The National Athletic Health Institute in Inglewood, California tested several professional motocross racers in September 1979 as part of a comparative study of the cardio-vascular, muscle endurance, and flexibility fitness of athletes from various disciplines. Athletes from track, American football, pro basketball and soccer were tested, among others. As a group, the motocross riders tested to a higher overall fitness level than any group tested. Motocross racers get their heart rate up to around 180 to 190 beats per minute and hold it there for about 35 minutes. These riders do this twice per day. A subsequent study by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Sports Performance Complex in 2002 reconfirmed the result with more recent motocross racers. The intense physical demand of motocross derives from the fact that the racer of the bike must keep complete control of a 200 lb (91 kg) or heavier bike, while also maintaining their top speed throughout the race.

 Motocross is a mixture of craziness and pure adrenalin, but then you cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. All I can think of concerning the people that want to do this is that they must be a sane person trapped in the body of a lunatic. They have crossed and re-crossed the line between sanity and madness so many times that they have all but rubbed it out completely.

I can only say that it must be a natural high, to do what they do on a motorcycle. That the physical demands as well as the mental demands just to do it in the first place, takes a lot of guts, a ton of determination, a lifetime of practice and pain, and the knowledge that deep inside, you have a few bats in the belfry, are a bit deranged, and are as nutty as a fruitcake.

However, it is pretty cool and amazing to watch if I must say so myself.