It was a Friday morning in an industrial section of downtown L.A. when Jason Britton drifted his Kawasaki Ninja around a corner and wheelied it down the alley, yielding a plume of exhaust, a ribbon of rubber and the gaping mouths of onlookers as the 45-year-old stunt biker performed in front of the cameras for an Icon Motosports ad campaign.
“It defies gravity. “I don’t get it, but he makes it work,” said Fred Osby, shaking his head. The retired L.A. Police Department motor officer was overseeing the shoot of a video that goes live Friday on YouTube and is likely to score millions of views.
Britton’s talent is truly something to behold, whether he’s riding in circles on his rear wheel, effortlessly drifting in a serpentine sashay or sliding to a stop and, in one continuous motion, parking his bike on its kickstand and jumping off to greet a fan.
Disdained as street stunters are for popping wheelies in freeway traffic or stoppies at a red light, Britton is, much like the company that sponsors him, an icon. The Huntington Beach resident is one of only a few stunt bikers to make a living at it.
Sponsored by motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki, tire maker Dunlop, apparel brand Icon and motor oil company Motul, among others, Britton, and his No Limit Motorsports shop in Westminster, are synonymous with a controversial style of sport bike riding that shows no signs of letting up after almost two decades.
“Even if they can’t do it, they want to resemble it,” Britton said.
His shop does a brisk business modifying Japanese sport bikes with all the tricks of the trade – cut-down gas tanks that double as seats, cut-out passenger seats that accommodate standing, handbrake brackets, sprockets, crash cages.
It’s also ground zero for Britton’s own Ninja ZX-6Rs, which he is prepping for the road. In March, he leaves on his annual stunt bike tour that will visit 42 cities – all of them out of state. California, he said, is too litigious.
Still, demand for his No Limit show is high.
The stunt scene “is everywhere, but it’s still growing like wildfire,” said Britton, who has 352,000 Facebook fans. “Everyone wants to do a wheelie. It’s just another level of control of your motorcycle, so there’s a certain appeal that reaches the masses.”
What Britton does is “entertainment,” he said. While he got his start in the ’90s performing wheelies on the street in front of a camera, he now restricts those activities to a 40-by-400-foot area.
“What I do is very precision. It’s all practiced and trained for. It’s stunt riding’s version of road racing,” said Britton, who, when he rides on the street, doesn’t wear anything that identifies him. “People are trying to impress me the whole time. It’s horrible. If they see my van with a big picture of me on the side, they do a wheelie right beside me.”
Guys who do that, he said, “I feel like they’re going to have their own learning curve. I practice what I preach. I wear safety gear and promote safety. The way I ride for a living, people say, ‘That’s not safe,’ but it’s not safe to walk across the street. There’s all kinds of things that are dangerous in this world.”
Gangs, for example.
Britton lived in the Compton neighborhood of South Los Angeles until age 2, at which time his mother noticed he was beginning to identify with one of the area’s two rival gangs – the Crips. Six months later, his parents moved Britton and his two siblings to Huntington Beach, where his mom worked three jobs and his dad worked two to make ends meet.
“That was the move that probably saved my life, or at least saved me as an individual, because had I been raised in that environment, I probably would’ve repeated what I was around,” said Britton, who often accompanied his mom to one of her jobs as a housekeeper of industrial buildings where, he said, he would amuse himself by sliding down conveyor belts.
Britton’s athleticism was apparent from a very young age. He started riding motorcycles at 2, he said, when his uncle let him ride a 50cc Honda Trail around the yard.
“Four hours later, my dad calls my mom and says, ‘You’re never going to believe this. Jason knows how to ride a motorcycle.’”
When Britton was age 4, his parents gave him his own bike, which he rode around the orange groves of Orange County. Eventually, he started racing dirt bikes at Saddleback Park, Lake Elsinore and Perris Raceway.
By 14, however, he was ready to trade dirt bikes for sport. A friend had a Honda Interceptor he let Britton ride, and from that point on he was hooked.
“I still had a dirt bike, but I got a taste of a street bike and it was ridiculous. The first time I got on it, I took off down the street and did a wheelie,” he said.
In 1986, after watching Tom Cruise ride a Kawasaki ZX10 down the runway in “Top Gun,” he bought a ZX10 for himself.
“That’s where it all started,” said Britton, who now owns dozens of sport bikes.
There was no such thing as stunt riding when Britton first started sport biking. But he began to document his natural inclination toward wheelies on video, and in 1997, the distribution company X Factor started producing and promoting them. VHS tapes led to DVDs, then stunt work for films such as “Biker Boyz,” music videos for artists including Beyoncé and commercials for Pepsi and Nike.
His current success is due to “a very good mix of intelligence, persistence and perseverance,” he said.
It was also cultivated through adversity.
Growing up in Huntington Beach, Britton said, his family was one of only two in the area who were black. Going to friends’ homes as a child, he overheard parents counsel their kids to put their toys away because people steal.
As a tween, he was harassed by police who didn’t believe he lived in Huntington Beach. In high school, teachers were surprised when he got the highest scores.
“There were no black kids on motorcycles,” said Britton, who is married with four kids. “In my world, I’m basically a white kid stuck in a black guy’s body. You’re a product of your environment …
“There’s racism in every single thing, and being a black motorcycle enthusiast, I’ve experienced every bit of it,” he said. “Breaking down those walls is a never-ending battle. People think you have to be black to experience racism, or Hispanic. Really, you just have to be different in any way. I ride a motorcycle. And, oh yeah, I’m black. And, oh yeah, I have a $300,000 car I drive around Huntington Beach.”
Contact the writer: scarpenter@ocregister.com
