FreestyleXtreme Magazine Issue 6 | Page 76

£ Judging
X-Fighters

© RED BULL CONTENT POOL

£ Trail riding in
Nevada

© SCHRAN.NET / RED BULL CONTENT POOL

© DAVID BLAZEK

£ Drake praises a break in
the clouds in Belgium

A

FTER RECEIVING
A PW50 for his first
birthday and learning
to ride it by age three,
Drake McElroy’s path in
life looked set to be one surrounded
by motorbikes. In 2000 Drake
exploded onto the FMX scene, and
soon found himself competing in
major US contests such as the Dew
Tour, IFMA, Gravity Games, Vans
Triple Crown, X Games and more.
Best known for his big extensions
and a smooth, lazy style that no
one could ever emulate, Drake
firmly made his mark as one of the
greatest riders of his era. Today he
is one of the most highly respected
guys in FMX. Drake still rides for
fun today, and is heavily involved
in the moto industry. At the Red
Bull X-Fighters course testing
sessions, Drake is often called upon
to test the gnarly jumps first. A
self-proclaimed ‘lover of all things
with two wheels’, Drake’s passion
for bikes is by no means limited
to freestyle motocross. Today
DMC finds himself trying to get his
fill of as many different types of
motorcycles as possible - whether
it’s riding, jumping, racing or
building them.
There is a long list of crazy projects,
journeys and rides Drake has been
involved with over the last few
years. One stand-out project was
when Red Bull made an eighteenpart web series in 2012 called
‘Drake’s Passage’. This awesome
show of art, music, culture, food,
booze and traditions followed Drake
as he made his way around the
world in the name of FMX. More
recently Drake appeared in episode
1 of the brand new Red Bull ‘Moto
Soul’ video series which is out now,
and comes strongly recommended
by us!

£ Drake in
Pecquencourt,
France 2007

© RICKY MONTI

Whilst on a recent trip to see the
FMX4Ever crew, we ran into Drake
in the town of Zelzate, Belgium at
the annual ‘Rock the Ramp’ FMX
show. Whilst it was raining outside
and practice was cancelled, we sat
down in the FMX4Ever warehouse

with the rider from Nevada to find
out what’s going on in his world.
So Drake, here we are in Belgium
with FMX4Ever! How did you
originally hook up with the
FMX4Ever crew?
Hmmm… weirdly I met Jimmy
[Verburgh] at a party haha… ages
ago, in about 2001. We were at
this event in San Antonio like the
Global X Games or something, and
I remember running into him and we
got talking. He was like, ‘I used to
ride moto and I’m starting up this
thing…’ and years later it all kind of
just came together. Whenever I was
coming over to Europe for shows I
would borrow bikes from him etc.
He’s been a really good homie to run
into over time. He always stays in
the circle and knows what’s up.
What have you been up to before
arriving here in Belgium?
I’ve been on the road for nearly
three weeks now. Firstly I was up in
the North West near Portland, where
we were doing shots for lookbooks
for See See Motorcycles. Then I flew
to L.A, where my brother had an
art show going on called Sound of
the Bone. The art gallery was open
for a month and the opening night
happened to be the night before
I flew to Madrid, so it was cool to
catch up with my brother and hang
out with him in Hollywood. So I went
to his show, then flew to Madrid,
did the X-Fighters stuff, packed up
and headed to Switzerland. I was
at the Free4Style event for a week
and got to hang out by the lake with
good friends and had some good
times with lots of riding! Then we
jumped in the van and headed here
to Belgium, where we kind of hit
the brakes. The weather has been
pretty sh**ty the whole time here
in Belgium, but the trip has been
nice. So right now we are here at
the FMX4Ever ‘Fortress’ or whatever
you want to call it haha, which is
cool. And that’s kind of been my
month [laughs]. You asked… there
it is!! u