Levi Sherwood and Jackson Strong ready for the X Games

Friday 22 June: 2012 marks the 18th running of X Games, which is held throughout various venues in downtown Los Angeles and Moto-Media will be there. Levi explains his bike setup in video and Australian Jackson Strong talks about his 12month lead-in.

Jackson Strong: Reigning X Games 'Best Trick' gold medalist, Jackson Strong is preparing to uncover the result of 6 months of planning and practice ahead of the ‘Olympics of Action’ Sports in Los Angeles this week.

The process of devising and developing a new trick to keep pace with the progression of freestyle motocross has been fraught with danger. The 19-year-old, known best as ‘Jacko’ took three months to successfully land the trick at his home compound in Lockhart, NSW, and has spent countless hours since trying to perfect it. Strong even made a flying visit to Queensland for a series of training sessions at a local circus school in order to fully understand the physics of the trick and ensure his timing and body positioning were at their optimum.

He won over X Games judges last year by landing a front-flip to dirt, a double-edged sword as it means his main rivals have too stepped up in their quest for gold.

Jackson Strong "I’ve spent at least 6 months working on this trick and have had some pretty big crashes trying to get it dialled,” said Strong. It took about three months before I actually landed it properly, and since then, I’ve been trying to work out how to make it cleaner and even took a few circus school classes to help me out.”

The trick, named simply ‘The Jack’, was intended to be shown at the Crusty Cup at the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix in March, but bad weather forced the cancellation of the Best Trick competition.

"I’ve been able to refine the trick that I was intending to do at the Crusty Cup and I’m now a lot more confident in landing it,” continued Strong. It’s going to be very tough to back up my 2011 result, I know that there are quite a few riders who have been putting in the work to develop their own new tricks for X Games."

Strong stood atop an all-Australian podium last year, heading home Cameron Sinclair (2nd) and Josh Sheehan (3rd).
The Moto X Best Trick contest will be contested from 8.15pm on Friday June 29 at the Staples Centre. Strong is also on the reserve rider list for Moto X Freestyle which takes place on Thursday.