FHM
Issue: March, 2002
Assignment: Feature Q&A with action sports legend Shaun Palmer.
HED: Shaun Palmer
DEK: The world’s top extreme athlete on naked biking, swinging from the treetops and the Redneck Mafia
You’ve won dozens of snowboard titles, come out of nowhere to blow away the mountain bike community and qualified for the main event at a Supercross race. What gets you out of bed in the morning at this point?
I don’t know. Sometimes I wake up and don’t think I’ve done enough. I’ve accomplished so much in sports and don’t even appreciate it. That’s pretty sad. Everyone things it’s so gung-ho easy, but I’m freaking out, trying to juggle all these different sports and pull all this shit off. My company made this poster of me, and it lists every title I’ve ever won. I looked at it the other day and told myself I need to relax and be proud of what I’ve accomplished, because I just keep chasing different dreams, and I’m miserable doing it. I need to pat myself on the back once in a while, but I never do. Nothing’s ever good enough.
What triggered you to say, “I may have to quit, because this is too damn easy,” after winning three boardercross events at the 1998 X Games?
I said that because there was no competition. At that point, I had just ridden my motocross bike for just three months, yet qualified for a Supercross main event at the LA Coliseum. Then I went on a weeklong alcohol binge before going to the boardercross competition. I hadn’t snowboarded all year until the practice the day before the event, yet I still smoked everybody. It was so easy that I had to run my mouth so everybody would give me some competition for the next season. The next season I beat everybody again to back up my big flapping mouth.
Do you get pissed when you think about guys who make millions to dribble a basketball or catch fly balls?
I used to, but that was just jealousy and insecurity. I just want to bring our sports into the public eye, because I think they’re real. I’m a better athlete than half the NFL. I did that “Superstars” thing in Jamaica in April, 2000, and Isaac Bruce was there. This is the wide receiver who had just won a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams, and I kicked his ass in a 220-yard running race. A running race! I would have been tied with Jason Sehorn going into the last event, but I missed a buoy on the Jet Ski. I got third.
Today’s alternative sports stars are all about wacky stunts, like Tony Hawk’s Loop and Danny Way’s dropping in from a helicopter. What have you done that measures up?
I like to jump off big, tall decks and use trees like they’re bungee cords. I did that at Mt. Snow and almost got arrested. You just run as fast as you can off the deck and tackle the top of the tree until it bends down from your weight and drops you on the ground, perfectly safe. Or sometimes, you dive onto a tree, miss it, and go flying through some branches and land on your head and look like an idiot. But you look like an idiot jumping into a tree anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
What kind of training did you have when you gave professional mountain biking a try back in 1995?
I never trained for shit. I drank beer and rode my bike. It was ridiculous. I won a national at Big Bear, CA, and was so anaerobic at the finish line that I just collapsed. I was chemically unbalanced, totally cross-eyed for about two hours. My body went way past the threshold. Then I started training.
Could the mountain bike scene ever live up to your idea of a party?
The do this race called the Naked Criterion, where everybody’s naked and drunk and partying. I didn’t want to do it, because I’m not into riding on a bike with a bunch of guys with their wieners hanging out. But I was drunk, so I put on my cowboy boots and a red belt and wrote “Little Dick” above the “Palmer” tattoo on my stomach. And I actually had the talent to pee while I was racing, so I was peeing all over my bike while I was winning the race.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, with its 156 turns up a 14,000-foot mountain, is as challenging as it gets in motorsports. What possessed you to enter the 2000 race in a Cadillac?
Cadillac wanted to get some press out of the event, so they started this luxury auto class. We drove STS’s up the hill. It was crazy. You’ve got to hang some balls out in certain sections that are blind, but the switchbacks in an STS? I can turn the radio on and call my girlfriend because the thing’s so slow. But there are other parts where you’re doing 80 and drifting, so it’s still pretty fun. Cadillac hired Herzog Motor Sports to do the whole thing, including their pro-class trucks. This year, I’m going to have them build me a 600-horsepower GM Cyclone truck and see if we can’t win the whole thing.
You also won a Toyota Pro/Celebrity race in Long Beach, CA. Were you responsible for the accident that flipped Donnie Osmond’s car?
Donny flipped his own car trying to catch me. I had nothing to do with the crash. He was miles behind me.
Why don’t you get a sponsor and just get on NASCAR?
I’d love to. I think they need a guy like me in NASCAR to stir things up. But that Redneck Mafia would never let me race. They’d put me in the wall every time. You have to be in the family out there or you’re done. A couple of people have learned that lesson the hard way. Robbie Gordon opens his mouth too much. He came from CART, spraying all the time about how he was going to dominate. You don’t spray to those good old boys. They run a tight-knit deal. I’d rather race F1, anyway. That’s the top-notch deal, and they don’t have an American right now.
Beyond a few broken bones, your injury resume is remarkably clean. Ever come close to a real mangling?
The first mountain bike World Cup I ever did was in Spain. During practice I came around a turn and this guy was lying right in the middle of it, so I cut to the inside and hit my hand on a rock. I smashed all my fingers and went flying 30 feet through rocks and trees. Nothing happened, but my fingers were jacked up. And I rolled a van at 70 mph, blew out all the windows and that tires. That was in Vermont, too. I think I’m on probation in Vermont.
