£ Choo Choo!
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If you have never seen a train
ride with fifteen plus riders... it is
something to see for sure!
B
OTH THE
BRAINCHILD
AND legacy
of legendary
Japanese rider
Eigo Sato,
GO BIG is the
singular FMX competition series
in Japan and Asia. What started
in 2008 as a single night-time
competition held in the birthplace
of Japanese FMX, Moto
Park Mori, grew to a full FMX
competition series the following
year. This year’s GO BIG series
sees four competitions held
throughout Japan, with the first of
the year once again at Moto Park
Mori on the 4th of May. One of the
changes to this year’s first round
was that the top five riders would
go on to compete in the Japanese
qualifying run of the Red Bull
54 | FreestyleXtreme
X-Fighters held in Osaka, Japan
twenty days later.
With this in mind many of the
riders had been working hard
over the winter months to both
refine existing tricks and bring
new ones to the competition to
help ensure a place in the top
five - and a chance to compete
in Osaka. Young guns Genki
Watanabe and Konta “Gonta”
Suzuki both traveled overseas
(Genki to the USA and Gonta to
France) in the months leading up
to the competition and hoped to
throw down some new tricks for
the Japanese fans. Even veteran
rider Daisuke “Daice” Suzuki was
working hard to bring his 360
combinations to GO BIG – and
hopefully make a winning start to
the 2014 season.
As GO BIG drew near, riders from
all over Japan gathered at Moto
Park Mori. Although the days
before the competition were filled
with long hours of practice, all
the riders could be seen laughing
and working together to make
sure everything was perfect for
competition day. Every rider
wants to win, but every rider also
cheers on their rivals as they go
big and push their limits. This is
one aspect of Japanese FMX that
is always amazing to see, and
something Eigo Sato was known
for when travelling the world.
Comparatively they may not have
the large numbers of riders other
countries enjoy, but Japan has
one of the closest families of
riders anywhere around.