Dalton Venter, the 4 time African Motocross champion and 2 time South African champion managed to somehow convince the team manager from Monster Energy Yamaha Racing team to let him and his team mates go and whip the hell out of a steel FMX ramp at King of the Whip and there was a fair chance he could win it!When I watched Dalton for the first time training at the Jungle Rush FMX compound, he was going so big that I couldn’t believe it!  Huge whips, upside down, back to front, dropping the front end so hard and coming back without even a puff of smoke or an engine rev.His whips would not have looked out of place at X Games Best Whip if I was honest. 

After finally meeting Dallan after so many years, it was great to grab a quick 5 minute chat with him before he was about to throw down at King of the Whip and see if he could stand on top of the box at the end of the night.

During our chat though, I was surprised when he dropped the bombshell that he was considering quitting FMX because of the backflip monkey on his back.  And this is no joke.  The backflip has ended the career of many riders.  Of guys who couldn’t land it.  And worse, those who crashed out badly.  No one will know how hard it is until they deal with this themselves and really look at how dangerous it is.

Normally a Best Whip competition is just a small side act, of a bigger Freestyle Motocross competition or Motocross / Supercross race.  

How did Ryan van der Spuy manage to bring the best riders in South Africa and now international riders like Julien Vanstippen (X Games gold medallist) to try out this crazy new event idea from the best FMX riders, MX, SX and even Enduro racers!?