Motorcycle stunt riding making jump to big time

Derek 'D-Mann' Daigle had just finished his impromptu stunt demonstration when the sound of a police siren interrupted his post-ride talk.

Daigle, one of the country's leading motorcycle stunt performers, was schooling a crowd of amateur and professional stunt riders in the parking lot of an Akron Holiday Inn. But his display of wheelies and skiing behind his Suzuki motorcycle on his heels drew the attention of the local authorities as well as his fans.

'Give me some names right now, or I'm gonna start impounding motorcycles,' the officer barked.

It was business as usual for D-Mann, a veteran street extreme rider who has watched this nascent sport grow from a small, grass-roots hobby into an international motorcycling movement.

Street extreme, or motorcycle stunt riding, has been popularized by wild, bone-jarring videos made and distributed by the riders themselves. The sport has long drawn criticism from motorcycling's mainstream as well as law enforcement agencies for its shock value and disregard for safety, but these elements are precisely what drew 2,000 spectators and some 80 stunt riders to Cleveland's Thompson Dragway recently for a show hosted by Akron's infamous stunt kings, The Starboyz.

The sizable crowds attending the show are proof that street extreme is finally making the jump from the crowded freeways and parking lots of its origins into the big time, says Starboy Scott Caraboolad.

The Starboyz, who were once so well-known to Ohio traffic patrolmen that each of the team's four members had an Akron police cruiser parked at his driveway, now perform at race events for as much as $5,000 per day.

Their faces have graced the covers of Europe's top motorsports magazines, and offers to perform are pouring in from England and France, where motorcycle stunt riding thrives at arenas and race tracks.

The newfound acceptance of street extreme couldn't happen soon enough for D-Mann, 31, a former Chicago fireman now living in Las Vegas.

'A few years ago, whenever a bunch of kids got together for stunting, you could guarantee the cops would come by and bust it up,' he says. 'Today, I don't even have to perform on the streets anymore because of all the offers to do professional shows at drag strips and bike rallies.'

Even Joseph Kraynik, the Boston Heights police officer who interrupted D-Mann's parking lot exhibition, ended up becoming a fan. After recognizing a few of the riders present from their videos, Kraynik rescinded his offer to tow away their motorcycles, settling instead for a few autographs and souvenir T-shirts.

'He even asked me to do a wheelie so he could see what it looked like close up,' says Ronnie Giovelli, a stunt rider with New York's Reality Racing.

Although street extreme riders from Ohio to Florida are now supporting themselves from earnings made by performing at weekend stunt shows and sales of their ubiquitous homemade videotapes, the sport still struggles to gain acceptance as a legitimate sport.

This is something the professional riders are determined to change.

Twin brothers Paul and Peter Marmorato, who lead the stunt team New York's Finest, say when they're not wowing crowds in Times Square or Long Island with handlebar-seated wheelies, they've been busy lobbying NBC-TV to include an exhibition of streetbike skills in the upcoming Gravity Games broadcast.

Handsome and muscular, the Marmorato twins are shoo-ins for TV. But new sports, particularly those derived from the street, often have a tough time gaining acceptance from budget-conscious network programmers.

'They'd rather run baseball and football (on TV), but the kids are into our kind of stuff now,' says Paul Marmorato, whose Suzuki stunt bike is covered entirely by aluminum foil. 'It's just a matter of time before people are getting paid millions to do this.'

The popular X-Games, created by cable sports network ESPN, is largely comprised of formerly outlaw extreme sports such as street luge and vert skateboarding, but these competitions now draw millions of fans and have spawned lucrative video games and product endorsements for athletes.

The problems with including street extreme in the X-Games are multiple, says Josh Krulewitz, manager of communications at ESPN. Other popular extreme sports, from bungee jumping to paintball, have failed to find their way into the X-Games because they lack clearly identifiable winners, TV-ready personalities and world-class athletes, he says.

'We're looking for sports that could be presented well for spectators and TV,' Krulewitz says. 'And it has to have several athletes competing on the same professional level. It needs a culture and a lifestyle - and a shared musical taste doesn't hurt, either.'

This sounds like a fairly accurate description of street extreme motorcycling, but unlike skateboarding, street extreme still needs to shed some of its outlaw image, says stunt rider Rob Marley, son of reggae music legend Bob Marley. Marley, who attended the Cleveland Stunt festival with his team the Miami Warriors, envisions street extreme someday being included in the X-Games and Gravity Games, but he says people must first become exposed to it in a nonthreatening manner.

'Motorcycle riders like to see us ride stunts on the street in our videos, but people in cars see that and they freak out and call the cops,' says Marley, who sports a thick mane of dreadlocks. 'We need TV to pick up our shows so people get used to seeing it.'

Filming stunt videos on the streets is great for thrill-seeking audiences, but local stunt riders have learned the hard way how much trouble it can cause. Tim Andreas, of Pittsburgh stunt team The Knee-Down Mafia, was practicing wheelies last fall along the Parkway West when he noticed a state police helicopter hovering overhead. Andreas, a US Airways mechanic, rode farther and noticed state troopers blocking each of the next two exits he considered using.

'I finally pulled over to surrender, and this cop looks at me and says, 'Get lost, kid. Al Gore's motorcade is coming through here in a few minutes, and we have to keep these roads cleared,' '' Andreas says. 'They never even noticed me.'

Everyday motorcyclists seem to be split about whether street extreme is a natural progression for today's lightweight, superpowered sportbikes or whether it's the worst thing to happen to biking's image since the Hell's Angels.

Gary Sweet, a marketing vice president at the American Motorcyclist Association's Pickerington, Ohio, headquarters, encountered a group of street extreme riders on his way to the annual Daytona Beach Bike Week celebration in March. Sweet, who's been riding for more than 20 years, was 'shocked and disgusted' enough to call the police on his cell phone.

'I think what these guys are doing is the absolute worst, irresponsible image you could give motorcycling,' says Sweet, whose 250,000-member organization lobbies lawmakers for bikers' rights and safety issues, among other things.

Still, Sweet's opinion, which was once universal at the American Motorcyclist Association, is now considered out of date: The Starboyz were hired to perform at the association's Annual Superbike Races at Mid-Ohio this summer, a move that many riders - including the Starboyz - never expected.

'Once people realize that, just like skateboarding did with the X-Games, that this can make people a whole lot of money, suddenly all of these people who thought we were scum, they're calling us to do shows,' says Starboy Kevin Marino.

Like all four Starboyz, Marino's Honda sportbike is covered by a thick layer of decorative fake fur. The fur helps deflect damage from the frequent crashes stunt riders endure. Marino, 30, was ready to redirect his talents from the streets to the racetracks after spending 60 days in jail for the dozens of traffic offenses he'd amassed.

'It just got to the point where it really wasn't worth it to ride stunts on the streets anymore, getting tickets and taking the cops on 10-mile chases at 120 miles per hour,' he says. 'Now, I tell all these kids who are trying to imitate us to just take it to the track.'

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Mike Seate is working on a book about the history of motorcycle stunt riders, titled 'Street Extreme.' The book, featuring illustrations by Tribune-Review photographer Joe Appel, will be published by Motorbooks International in March.

Mike Seate can be reached at (412) 320-7845 or mseate@tribweb.com .