Jolene Van Vugt is a professional motocross racer, the first woman to back-flip a dirt bike and a member of the MTV reality stunt show Nitro Circus.
While those first two are easily explained to the average person, describing what the Nitro Circus is to those not familiar with the show is more challenging.
However, Nitro Circus star and extreme sports legend Travis Pastrana sums up what he, Jolene and the rest of the show’s cast of thrill seekers do each week during a preview for the show’s second season which premiers on MTV Canada on Thursday, Aug. 27. “We are doing the same thing we do everyday, we’re trying not to die.”
As for the 28-year-old Londoner, Jolene says she has found herself living the life she never dreamed of.
“It’s pretty cool, there’s nothing I can complain about. It’s the stupidest, most fun, epic, gnarly thing I could ever be a part of. And it is definitely the coolest,” Jolene says during an interview from Utah where she was filming the final episode of the show’s second season. “It’s the most way cool of jobs. I never thought I would be where I am today. I had been racing since I was young; that was always a part of my life. But I graduated high school, went to prom, went to college, did all the normal things. Got a job at a magazine. I thought when I was 18 I would be married by 22, had a kid at 23, maybe another one a few years after that. But I’m 28 now, maybe this isn’t how my life was suppose to go, but doors just kept opening up and I went with them.”
One of those doors led Jolene to the first season of Nitro Circus. The show filmed 12 episodes that first season in locations across the United States and beyond. One particularly exhausting eight-day period saw the Nitro Circus crew filming in Panama, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.
“We were exhausted. We were constantly filming, if we weren’t on a bus or a plane, we were filming. For a reality show, well it’s not your typical reality show about filming celebrities doing everyday things,” Jolene says. “We are slammed, mashed, crashed all the time. I don’t think we were prepared for how rough it got season one. The first season a stunt would come up and everyone would just all do it. We had to suck it up, get past the pain. I’ve had broken bones before, multiple injuries, but when you are racing you usually have time to recover. We have to shoot so much in such a short period of time. So I spend a lot of time at the chiropractor and use a lot of ice.”
A veteran of the motocross circuit, Jolene has never been a stranger to getting hurt. And it was perhaps destiny that a dirt bike would lead Jolene to the life she leads today. Jolene’s change in direction can be traced back to her becoming the first woman to back flip a dirt bike.
Jolene hasn’t had much free time as of late, but she did make her way back to London last month – for surgery.
Ironically, Jolene broke her wrist and needed to it surgically repaired not by jumping a motorcycle into the Grand Canyon, setting world records for the first and longest female back-flips on a dirt bike or jumping into a lake while hanging from a helicopter – all of which she did, and much more, during season one – but rather preparing for the 2009 X-Games.
The X-Games is an annual event with a focus on extreme action sports and Jolene was thrilled to be one of only 10 women asked to join the games this year. However, her broken wrist put an end to that.
Becoming a reality TV star (although Jolene wouldn’t use such a term to describe herself) has given the self-described “ordinary girl from London” a little more empathy for the celebrity culture that exists in the United States. Jolene has done commercials, attended big Hollywood events like the MTV Movie Awards, but says she now knows what it can feel like to have the spotlight shining brightly in her direction.
“It’s crazy this Hollywood-focused world we live in. I feel sorry for someone like Britney Spears. She chose to be an entertainer, but not to be exploited like she is,” Jolene says. “I’ve seen behind the curtain now and it definitely has its angels and demons. But you have to stay true to who you are and work hard to come out on top. It’s a cool life.”
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