Lightning: We were wondering If you could tell the story behind the images we are printing?
Derek Gibson: The Guy with the #1 on his bike, he’s one of the all time, I guess you can say, baddest racers. His name is Jeff Stanton, and he’s a former national champ. He’s won stuff for the United States when they go over seas in Europe and race. I did that for an opening round hall of fame presentation that was in Atlanta last year and they just presented it to him on the Monster energy stage at the super cross race.
L: Speaking of your experience with motocross, you grew up in Southern California right?
D: yeah, in Riverside.
L: Can you tell us about growing up and dirt biking out there?
D: My dad used to race out there in the desert. We would go away and race on the weekends. I got my first bike when I was 5.
L: What was your first bike?
D: A Yamaha PW50.
L: So where would you go out on the weekends?
D: We’d just leave Friday after my dad would get off work . We used to have a motorhome and we would go out to the desert and stuff and camp out there. It was pretty fun, I actually really miss that kind of stuff.
L: Did your dad compete?
D: He was really fast in Desert. He would race. That’s how I got into it. He told me - we had a big hill in front of our house - he told me when I could go down the hill without training wheels on my bicycle I could get my first dirt bike. I got my first bicycle on Christmas one year and that day within 30 minutes I was going down the hill...I was pretty pumped.
L: Did you compete when you were a kid? D: Yup.
L: Can you tell us a bit about the difference between racing desert vs other terrains?
D: Well its a lot higher speed and pretty gnarly actually because going that fast you come up on ravines and you just got to really be on your toes vs knowing exactly where everything is on say a motocross course. Because even though you can pre run the sections of the course out in the desert, but you still have to be really alert when you are doing that kind of racing.
L: So were you doing art back then too?
D: I did artwork in high school and I took a
few classes at the Junior College but it didn’t really pan out with racing because it was too conflicting of a schedule. But here in the last 2.5 to 3 years, one day I just started drawing and I want to give it everything I have because with racing and stuff I kind of slacked at the end, like with racing on like TV and stuff, and I really have a lot of regrets from doing that, and with this, I wanna give it all I got, and someday, wherever I’m at with it, man I just wanna know like here I am, this is where it got me for putting everything, my heart and everything into it, and I won’t be disappointed then because I know I did everything I could. So I’ve learned quite a bit along the way and I want to make the most of this and learn from the mistakes I’ve made in the past.
L: Can you talk about your dirt bike career a little bit?
D: Well I started in CA racing and then we moved out to Iowa (laughs) middle of nowhere. Actually one of the reasons we moved from CA which seems weird was because we wanted some ranch to build a practice track, because the price of acres in the midwest compared to CA is way different its a lot cheaper. So I moved out here and started racing and really got into it, and I turned professional when I was 16. I raced and started beating some guys that were on TV at local races..And just when I was sup- posed to go to the Outdoor national, I got hurt really bad. It just seemed like every time that opportunity would come up something would always go wrong, so I guess it wasn’t supposed to be. And now I still got a bike and still ride a lot, and I might have a motocross school this summer to teach kids.
L: We saw some photos on Facebook of you guys excavating land. Is that your track?
D: Oh, no, that’s my buddies. I’m doing the announcing out there. It’s one of the top up and coming tracks. They just finished it and had the first practice last Fall in October. It’s supposed to be one of the next big tracks to hit in America. The guy that built it, our buddy, he does a lot of the stuff for the X games, he’s really good at it.
L: Have you seen dirt biking and motocross change a lot over the years?
D: Oh yeah. Yup. I’d say It’s really blowing up lately. We’re really knocking on the door size wise of Nascar right now. It’s crazy. And a lot of people they always say you just sit on the bike and twist the throttle, but besides soccer they say that motocross athletes have the second highest endurance out of any other sport that there is, cardio and stuff, those guys race when they are on tv - they do 30 min races plus 2 laps, so it ends up being 35 min and those tracks get super super rough from all the bikes going over it - and you got to beef up your body and have awesome cardio to do that stuff. You can get what’s called arm pump when your forearms don’t get enough oxygen through your veins and it causes your forearms to cramp up so if your not in good shape that happens and you can’t really ride the bike because you can’t hold on.
L: So you’d guys would probably make good surfers ....
D: Oh yeah, my uncle is a pro surfer, he lives in Carlsbad.
L: Any new stuff going on ?
D: I don’t know if you saw the one I just finished for BJ Baldwin? They do the off road trucks in the desert like the Baja 1000 - are you familiar with that? They race 1000 miles through the desert in Baja and this guy is one of the best drivers of all time. They are presenting it to him next week in Las Vegas at the Mint 400 race. So I’m just starting to get into Off road as well as Nascar. So I’ve got a lot of cool stuff going on. I’m excited to see how these next 12 months are gonna pan out.
