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COVER: X Appeal Meet the Women Who Rule Extreme Sports
by Michael Kaplan
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Burning
rubber around steeply banked race track turns. Hurtling down waves
the size of office buildings. Snow boarding through the sky.
Taming the gnarliest bulls in the Southwest. It takes major cojones
for that stuff, mister. Or Does it? More and more
women are discovering the extreme sports that put you on wheels waves snowy
mountains, or the back of a bull.
APPEAL Now the X Girls are making a name for themselves in what used to be a man's world. As snowboarder Tina Basich points out, "Action sports are not just for boys anymore." Here are four of our favorite queens of extreme. Allow them to take you for a wild ride - if you dare. |
| JOCELIN
Dressed from the neck
down in form-fitting leather, Jocelin navigates turns at speeds up to
160mph. Considering that the single-monikered motorcycle racer
routinely blows away the guys-she's won a half-dozen amateur races during
three years in the game-you'd never imagine that a 31-year-old resident of
Santa Cruz, California, initially felt out of place riding her Yamaha TZ250
Grand Prix against men. Like Yentl on wheels, she stashed her curly
brown tresses underneath her helmet to blend in with the guys, while secretly
yearning for female competitors. No more. "Now I like that
there's no women's division," says Jocelin, who rides on the AMA / Formula
USA/GPRA circuit. "Since turning pro I've been keeping my hair
out."
She may have left her hair down, but she sounds like Springsteen when she talks about biking. "You're tucked down under the bubble," she says dreamily. "Your head is behind the windscreen and on the tank, as low as you can get, your elbows and knees are tucked in, and you become one with the bike. You've got the throttle all the way open, you're going as fast as you can." And, thanks to the femininity that once worked against her, Jocelin's built for speed in a way that her male competitors can only fantasize about: "Every seven pounds you remove from the bike is a horsepower gain," she notes. "I weigh only 100 pounds, so that's an advantage." Think of this leather-dipped hottie hugging turns on a fast bike, and you might get some funny ideas. But Jocelin makes it clear that dating a speed demon might be a rougher ride than you'd imagine. "Guys who go out with me can't figure out why I like to race; they can't relate to the rush," says Jocelin, who recently split with a Grand Prix champ after racing and romancing proved incompatible. Choosing between them sounds like a no-brainer. "Nothing," she claims, "has ever come close to the thrill of motorcycle racing." SPRING 2002 UNLIMITED |
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