With one death-defying trick, Medford’s Caleb Wyatt launches himself into stardom in the freestyle motocross

EXPN.com’s poll asks, "Caleb Wyatt riding out a backflip is sick enough. Now he wants to do it in a Freestyle run. What do you think?"

The choices:

A — "He’s all over it."

B — "There is no way, no how."

C — "I’ll see it when I believe it."

D — "If he’s that crazy maybe he’ll land it."

Wyatt, a 26-year-old "born-and-raised" Medford native, has burst into fame in the freestyle motocross world by recently becoming the first person to pull off a back flip on a dirt bike and successfully ride away.

The trick, executed April 26 at the Rogue Valley Motocross Track outside Central Point and aired Wednesday on ESPN2, had been attempted many times before, including on five occasions by Wyatt.

But with it completed and caught on camera, Wyatt’s star, already rising, was launched.

"The back flip’s been on everybody’s mind," says Wyatt, whose feat will be replayed by ESPN2 on June 23 at 9 p.m. and who will also be featured today in a motocross show from noon until 2 p.m. on ESPN2. "Everybody’s known for at least the last two years that it’s a possible deal.

"(The attention) is definitely one of the reasons why I did it. ... You’ve gotta do something extraordinary to get noticed."

Just in the last year, Wyatt has gotten big enough — and started making enough — in motocross to stop working part-time jobs on the side.

He turned pro in 1998 and, after starting with racing, quickly switched to freestyle, in which contestants launch off a ramp to perform in-air, judged tricks on their motorcycle, usually from around 30 feet up.

But Wyatt’s love of the sport has much deeper roots than those.

"I’ve known since I was a little kid, long before I got a dirt bike, that this is what I was gonna be doing," says Wyatt, who attended, but never graduated from, South Medford High.

"It’s just the excitement of it. I’ve never been able to sit and watch a baseball game for the life of me — or a football game, for that matter. ... This is definitely the most entertaining and exciting sport there is."

Wyatt bought his first bike at "13 or 14" with money earned by mowing Medford-area lawns and began honing his skills at John’s Peak above Jacksonville.

When Wyatt was 16, he suffered the first of five serious knee injuries he has overcome, tearing an anterior cruciate ligament while "goofing off" on his bike.

But the most serious of Wyatt’s injuries didn’t occur until after he turned pro and joined a freestyle motocross tour.

At a practice in advance of a show in Las Vegas, Wyatt had an awkward takeoff from a metal ramp, spun 180 degrees in the air and crashed to the ground from about 30 feet up onto a metal landing strip.

Wyatt’s head took the brunt of the fall, and he had to be flown via helicopter to a Vegas hospital, where a brain hemorrhage kept him in intensive care for a week and a half.

"People told me later that I had brain fluid coming out of my eyes," says Wyatt, who had short-term memory loss and underwent speech therapy as part of his recovery. "I laid home in bed for at least a month. It was like I was really hung over every day."

Yet not for a minute, Wyatt says, did he consider retiring from the sport.

"I’ve never contemplated being done," Wyatt says. "It happened so fast, and I don’t remember any of it. Nothing ever happened, as far as I’m concerned.

"But it does takes some time after a crash like that. You have to get back your confidence, because confidence is everything."

Aiding Wyatt’s unwavering confidence these days are a handful of sponsors lending their support, financial and otherwise, and tours that have included trips to locations such as Australia, Costa Rica and Hawaii.

He’s currently gearing up for the Aug. 15-19 ESPN X Games VIII in Philadelphia, where he’ll compete in the big air and step-up events.

"The X Games is definitely the biggest thing going right now as far as this sport is concerned," says Wyatt, who will be making his first X Games appearance. "I’m going for (the back flip) again in the big air there."

In the meantime, Wyatt is staying busy with his freestyle FMX tour, which took him to New Jersey on Friday, and splitting off-days between San Diego — home of "the motocross scene" — and Medford.

He and wife Tina have two boys, Austin, 8, and Ethan, eight months, and Wyatt will have his likeness soon depicted by an action figure, on a trading card and in a video game.

"It’s more than I ever dreamed," Wyatt says of his life.

Wyatt isn’t scheduled to appear in any competitions or exhibitions anytime soon in the Rogue Valley, but he hopes the sport’s growing popularity helps freestyle motocross gain a threshold here.

"I’m looking for a place to ride when I’m at home," Wyatt says. "I’d love to do some local stuff."

That way, he could show Rogue Valley fans that the correct answer to EXPN.com’s poll is probably A or D (excluding the "maybe"), depending on how one looks at it.

Reach reporter Tim Pyle at 776-4483 or e-mail tpyle@mailtribune.com