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The Crusty Demons are a group of daredevil freestyle motorcyclists from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. They originated in 1994 with the filming of Crusty Demons of Dirt by Fleshwound Films. Since then, they have been the subject of about 20 videos, and in 2007 the video game Crusty Demons was released to the public. Together the members of Crusty Demons have set 11 world records in their careers.
Contents
Background
The origins of the group can be traced to 1994, when filmmakers Jon Freeman and Dana Nicholson had been accumulating footage to showcase a behind the scenes expose of the lifestyle of an American pro motocross rider in action, featuring 145 ft plus jumps, 45 ft high in the air soaring over sand dunes, mountains, houses, buses and anything else secure and steep enough to hold the weight of bike and rider. The end result was Fleshwound Films and the first video "Crusty Demons of Dirt".
Following the success of the first film, Crusty 2 premiered 18 months later. Sales exceeded expectations and tripled from the first video as the Crusty phenomenon began spreading worldwide. What was somewhat a stagnant sport had received a positive injection of interest and proved its worthiness of being showcased Internationally. People began buying the clothing worn by their heroes (Fleshgear) and thousands around the world were getting bikes and heading for the racetrack, mountains, sand dunes and the sky. With a unique production style the Crusty Demons filmed created a whole new genre of Action Sports Films. With cutting-edge editing by Director of Photography Scotty Avalos, they quickly gained a following and the hardcore fans were born.
With the release of Crusty 3 in 1997 and the videos and sport rising in popularity, freestyle motocross pioneer Lofty (a.k.a. Brian Jordan) went to Fleshwound Films with the idea of staging a freestyle motocross competition. Four months later the first competition was held in Las Vegas. This new side of the sport was looked down upon by the industry and many people said it would go nowhere, but the excitement amongst the fans indicated otherwise.
Fleshwound Films undoubtedly played a crucial part in the evolution of the sport, they are still shooting Crusty Films today and recently released the 10th installment titled "Crusty X – A Decade of Dirt". Apart from videos, Fleshwound also made a great success out of Fleshwound Film merchandise, which inspired their creation of the official Crusty clothing brand, Flesh gear (a freestyle ride gear and lifestyle clothing).
Riders
European riders:
Prominent riders
Nate Adams is currently ranked the number one freestyle motocross athlete in the world and Trigger Gumm held the world record for the longest jump on a motorcycle, until it was broken by Australian Robbie Maddison on December 31, 2007. Gumm was a four-time Guinness Book World Record holder for longest distance jump, breaking the record in Australia in May 2005 when he launched his Service Honda 500 cc motorcycle 277.5 feet. He also has the record for height in jumping, going vertical at 80 feet high. Seth Enslow who is also a member of the Crusty Demons will attempt to break this record in March 2008 in Australia at the event titled "The Night of World Records 2". Also Jeff Emig was a major rider in the Crusty Demons of Dirt, winning four world champion titles.
Video game
2007 marked the video game release of "Crusty Demons", released on PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The game featured Ronnie Faisst, Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg, Seth Enslow, Kenny Bartram, and Dan Pastor as playable characters as well as an array of fictional characters. Players perform typical Crusty Demons style stunts in urban city locations, with the main goals of building points, which are obtained by performing tricks successfully, and inflicting as many injuries as possible to the rider via crashes. Other objectives includes smashing into targets, and winning races. The story revolves around the Crusty Demons, who die in an accident at the start of the game and are brought back to life by 'the Devil'.
Records
The Crusty Demons have set the following world records: