"I went home, packed my bags, left Monday morning with $200, a piece of shit van, my bike, a bag of gear and some clothes."

OBSCENE: How long have you been riding?
RONNIE: I started riding when I was 8 years old, so it’s been about 23 years now.

OBSCENE: Where did you grow up riding?
RONNIE: I grew up riding in New Jersey and I moved to California in ’97. I was racing back east 125 Outdoor Nationals and Supercross and I really wasn’t doing that good. I was hanging out with Brian Deegan at the time, I had seen all the Crusty videos that him and Metzgar had been in and it looked like a lot of fun. I wanted to get in some videos. Deegan got the Mototriple X guys to come out and stay at my house and film in between Budds Creek National an Southwick National. That whole week Deegan, Willoh and Curry stayed at my house and we all filmed at all my local spots in Jersey that I grew up riding at. I had so much fun and was excited to come out in the video and by the end of the week, Deegan had talked me into coming out to California. I raced Southwick that weekend and I didn’t qualify.  I was like “screw this!” I went home, packed my bags, let Monday morning with $200, a piece of shit van, my bike, a bag of gear and some clothes.

OBSCENE: Tell us about the start of free-style motocross life and how it happened for you?
RONNIE: I got on the Warpt Tour in “98, I took the money I made on the tour, bought a new bike and on the tour a picked up DVS, Blackflies, Fleshgear all as paying sponsors.  Back then it was about $300 a month from each, but when you don’t have nothing, that’s a lot. I was getting paid to ride. I never made any money racing, so if I could make money having fun and doing freestyle, why not? I was going on tour with all expenses paid per diem salary, so I decided screw racing “I’m a freestyle guy”, so I started learning tricks.

OBSCENE: Tell us about the Metal Mullisha?
RONNIE: Deegan and Larry started it. I was there since the beginning. I was living with Deegan when they were getting it going. I’ve been one of the original soldiers in the group and have watched everyone come into the group and have watched it grow from this group of friends to being one of the most recognizable groups of riders in the industry.

OBSCENE: Take us through one of your runs in a contest.
RONNIE: If you are at a contest you usually get about 12 jumps. I always try to break it up. I’ll try to do about 6 of my best flip tricks and 6 of my best regular tricks. I always try to split them in half.

OBSCENE: What contest do you look forward to every year?
RONNIE: X-Games! It’s the coolest for sure. I like the Dew Tour because you are at a different city, you’re doing a series and you get to ride different tracks, but nothing compares to the X-Games. The hype, the amount of people that come out, it’s local, it’s in L.A., your friends and family are there, it’s the biggest hype of the year and I get to come home afterwards.

OBSCENE: What was the hardest trick you had to learn?
RONNIE: The 360 because I got hurt trying it. That always makes it harder because it’s stuck in the back of your mind. I started doing it in the foam pit and I learned it and all of a sudden I couldn’t do it. I got it down again, so I did it at X-Games ’06. I crashed doing it, fractured my wrist, tweaked some ligaments in my hand and separated my shoulder. I didn’t mess with it for a while. X-Games ’07 ws coming around so I started doing it in the pit again and I got it down again. I tried it again at X-Games…I over rotated, crashed again, rung my bell, got knocked out for about 15-20 seconds. I tried it again on my second run, crashed again and broke my foot. I have 3 attempts and 3 crashes so I switched ramps and went from a 45ft gap off a steep ramp to a 75ft gap of a mellow ramp. I do it off the regular standard ramp that we do all of tricks off. I started doing it off that ramp into the foam pit, got a hundred times more consistent than I ever was off the other ramp. I went again for it this year and I stuck it. It was just hard going over the same trick that was getting me hurt year after year.

OBSCENE: Who would you like to thank?
RONNIE: Metal Mullisha, Rockstar, Honda, DVS Shoes, MSR Racing, Electric, Boost mobil, RG3, FMF, CTI, SHUI