Australia’s Clinton Moore will attempt to be the first FMX rider to perform the Doom – a midair back flip through the front of his handlebars – at the Red Bull X-Fighters stop in Madrid.

Clinton Moore – photo: Flo Hagena / Red Bull Content Pool

Australia’s Clinton Moore was the first freestyle motocross rider to do the Volt – a 360-degree spin off the seat of his bike – in an FMX competition in 2010. But his awe-inspiring leap in the wildcard event that year was eclipsed by Robbie Maddison, who did the gravity-defying Volt on the next night in the main competition and won the event. Everyone talks about Maddison. Fast forward to 2013 and Moore is back in Madrid with another jump that no one has ever attempted in an FMX competition: the Doom.

Moore, who is 25 and will be in only his fourth Red Bull X-Fighters event in Madrid, will try to make it into the record books with what he calls the Doom – a back flip through the front of his handlebars. It is a distant cousin of Tom Pages’ Special Flip – a back flip above the seat of the bike – but is different in that Moore will be doing the back flip in front and above his handlebars and his legs will be extended towards the sky for an instant before he gets back on the bike. Kyle Loza won the best-trick competition at the X-Games with the jump he called “Electric Doom”, a one-off jump, while Moore, a down-to-earth guy, calls his leap simply “Doom” and will be the first to do it in an extended FMX run.

“It’s kind of unfortunate that I was the first person to do the Volt in competition in the Wildcard here three years ago but didn’t make it to the main event and then Maddo did the Volt and that’s what everyone remembers,” said Moore. “Obviously he’s got a big name and the media latched onto him. It pisses me off sometimes but that’s part of FMX. Yeah sure, it sometimes feels like I might have been cheated a bit out of my place in history. Sometimes people come up to me and say like ‘dude, you should get recognition for doing that first. But that’s just how the media works. My time will come. Hopefully this is my time.”

Clinton Moore going big in practice – photo: Daniel Grund/Red Bull Content Pool

 Moore — who admits the Doom “is definitely scary, it scares me” — has been the talk of the pit lane in Madrid for the Doom as well as his Volt. He could be giving Pages a run for his money in Madrid, the most celebrated stop on the Red Bull X-Fighters circuit each year where riders constantly push the envelope for new and more thrilling tricks.

“I’ve got the Volt too and so I’m relaxed and really looking forward to the event,” he said. Moore has done the Doom dozens of times in a foam bit but only twice to dirt – about four weeks ago. “I wanted to go home and do it to dirt more in the last few weeks but it was too windy. I’ve done it a lot and have a good feeling about it.”

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