Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/839188
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE R emember when your mom, trying to teach you not to do dumb stuff just because your friends were doing it, would say: "If someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?" You've got to feel for Debbie Evans' mom. Instead of a cautionary warning, Evans seems to have taken the rhetorical question as a challenge. Evans was a pioneer in observed trials competition, a sport that calls for expertise on a narrow, marked, twisty maze of a course. Evans proved adept at the sport, which is a display of strength, concentration and balance. She was the first woman to compete in FIM World Champi- onship Trials and was dubbed the "Queen of Trials" by the motorcy- cling press. She was also the first woman to successfully ride in the U.S. Trials during the late 1970s and is generally considered the best female trials rider in the his- tory of the sport. In an amazing testament to her skill, in 1998, Evans, at 40, came out of retirement after 18 years away from the sport to compete in the unofficial Women's World Trials Championship and finished eighth in a field of 38 competitors from 12 countries. In 1999 she led a U.S. women's team to third in world championship team trials competition. In addition to her considerable accomplishments in trials, Evans became even better known for her day job as a Hollywood stuntwoman. Evans emerged as one of the leading movie stunt performers in Holly- wood and has earned numerous awards for her work in more than 200 movies and television shows. Remember the scene in The Fast and the Furious where the sports car drives under a speed- ing semi-truck? That was Debbie. Evans was born in Lakewood, California. The daughter of an avid motorcyclist, Evans learned to ride when she was just six years old. Her father was a trials rider and young Debbie grew up around the sport. "I think he wanted sons," Evans told Reader's Digest. She added she regularly terrified her mom, Edna, by scaling fences and climbing lampposts around their Los Angeles home. Not content to simply watch, as a young girl, Evans would ride her minibike around and mimic the moves of the older trials riders. One day a fellow competi- tor was talking to Evans' dad as he was loading up and pointed to a youngster jumping a small motorcycle and said, "That little kid is pretty good!" It turned out the little kid was Debbie and her dad recognized that she was good enough to start riding trials. She entered her first trials when she was nine and earned a third- place trophy. As a youth, Evans competed successfully in trials and endu- ros, this during a time when there were no classes for girls. Even though her male counterparts did not like being beaten by a girl, over time she earned the respect of her fellow riders. By the 1970s, Evans was recognized as easily the best female rider in trials rid- ing and she earned sponsorship from Yamaha. In addition to trials competition, Evans began giving exhibition shows, at first at fairs and local races, and eventually in front of tens of thousands of fans at AMA Grand National and AMA Supercross events. Her trademark move became a trick in which she would balance her motorcycle with the kickstand up and perform a headstand on the seat. By the mid-1970s, Evans became the first woman to obtain expert classification in trials. In 1979, she recorded another first when she scored a victory in the sportsman class at the U.S. Trials Nationals. Seeking greater challenges, Evans, at 19, ac- cepted an invitation to race in the QUEEN OF TRIALS P138 Debbie Evans spends most of her time now doing stunts in Hollywood.