Looking Back Now: Oh man, to this day, this goes down as one of the craziest things that I’ve ever witnessed. But let’s start off with our goofiness earlier in the night. Can you imagine walking into a nightclub and seeing Matt Hoffman, Keith Trainor, Bart de Jong, Robbie Morales, Dave Mirra, and myself all rolling across a dance floor trying to “steamroller” people!? How funny is that? You definitely can’t say that we didn’t have fun and act a fool back in the day!
At these contests, when we’d go out, our crew would ALWAYS outnumber the bouncers at any club. So we would always act silly and typically get away with it. But this time, they called the cops in for back up.
Here’s how the car “incident” went down: The bouncers would not let one of the BMX guys go and at the same time, the cops pulled up and were running up to help. So Darcy (current product manager at MacNeil) figured he would “distract” the cops. So he jumped in an empty cop car and started revvin’ it up. Well, it worked. Because the cops turned around and ran straight to the car. But right when a cop was diving into the car, he dropped it into gear! The cop hung on for a bit, but eventually flew off when Darcy was tearing across the parking lot. He drove about 100 yards & then stopped & every other cop in vicinity ran after him and jumped on him and arrested him. It was SO crazy! We were all watching in disbelief. Oh, and his plan did work because the guy who the bouncers were holding did get away. After about 2 seconds after the cop car incident, we all jetted out of there as fast as we possibly could. I think there were about 10 people in my rental car, so that’s why Reuben Castillo and I dove into the trunk. We just wanted the heck out of there!
Photo Caption: Believe it or not, I sobered up enough the next day to place 2nd in the “Good” class (Expert) in the streeet contest behind Stuart King. If I am not mistaken, some other guys in the “Good” class that weekend were Taj Mihelic, Luc-E, Brian Foster, Mike “The Boy” Ocoboc, and Colin Winkelman (RIP).
I started keeping a daily journal way back in 1987 when I was only 15 years old. Back then I was a just a freshman in high school. Since then, every single freakin’ day of my life has been documented in these journals. If it happened in my life, then I wrote it down & documented it. And believe me; I’ve got some stories to tell!
Looking back over the years, here is a journal entry that stands out and also my comments looking back now. Hoffman Contest- Hoffman Estates, IL -The Stolen Cop Car November 11th, 1994 Actual Journal Entry: We went to the park & watched flatland & mini ramp all day. At night, we all drank at the hotel & then went to a bar called “Durty Nelly’s.” It was packed. Later we started moshin’ and steam rolling on the dance floor & acting silly. Some people got kicked out. Then when we were leaving, a bouncer wouldn’t let a guy go. So me and some others were pulling on the guy & punching the bouncer. Then the cops ran up and a Canadian BMX guy jumped in the cop’s car and started rev’in it up. Then he put it in gear and took of with a cop hangin on to the back of it. The cop tried to hang on, but flew off! We all saw it and ran to our cars & jumped in. Reuben Castillo & I jumped in the trunk & Mirra drove a bunch of us back. We got back to our hotel & talked about the craziness that we witnessed. That Canadain guy got arrested.
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.