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Motocross Saved My Life
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“What a powerful story and legacy...Aspiring to achieve one's full potential through sport, regardless what form life's challenges might take. This is Paralympism - and this is Brent.”
-Sonja Gaudet, 3 Time Paralympic Gold Medalist
“Over the course of the 40 plus years that I've spent hanging around the sport of the motocross, very few people have inspired me the way Brent Worrall has.”
-Chris Pomeroy, Editor at Motocross Performance Magazine and former top Pro National Motocross racer
-Sonja Gaudet, 3 Time Paralympic Gold Medalist
“Over the course of the 40 plus years that I've spent hanging around the sport of the motocross, very few people have inspired me the way Brent Worrall has.”
-Chris Pomeroy, Editor at Motocross Performance Magazine and former top Pro National Motocross racer
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In 2011, former Canadian national champion motocross racer Brent (Airmail) Worrall, who had recently returned to the sport after a lengthy absence due to struggles with alcohol, gambling, and depression, was again in a fight to save his own life. His shot at redemption and making peace with the sport he loves was cut short by a near-fatal crash. A mechanical malfunction in mid-flight over the track’s largest jump sent him spiralling into a nose dive. He had just enough time while airborne to say, “Survive, survive, survive.”
He broke his back and neck in six places, fractured his clavicle, sternum, and multiple ribs and collapsed his lungs. After flat-lining on the operating table four times, Brent’s doctors finally managed to stabilize him. He required two blood transfusions, and his doctors feared the worst. He emerged from hospital a paraplegic, given only five to ten years to live due to various complications from his accident. After losing the sport he loved many years before to the seedy underworld of depression, alcoholism, drugs, and compulsive gambling, he vowed never to let go of his lifeline passion again. Brent meticulously takes us through his troubled journey to the eventual promised land where he now sits. Along the way, he recounts his many inspirational interactions with those who helped mould his character, including Rick Hansen on his Man in Motion tour as well as looking into Terry Fox’s eyes on his Marathon of Hope. In keeping with his character as an avid sports and history enthusiast, Brent takes us back through many pertinent historical events that shaped his life and society as a whole. Two years after his accident, Brent was back at the track, this time to announce races rather than participate in them. Shortly after that, he launched the Canadian Moto Show, a live online talk-radio show, as well as a magazine, with his good friend Kevin Lefebvre. Throughout the process of giving back to the motocross community while also reinventing himself, he maintained a position as a senior writer at Motocross Performance Magazine. In 2016, he was nominated for a Coast Mental Health Courage to Come Back award. He continues to reshape his life within the sport he loves, refusing to let any of the formidable obstacles he has faced slow him down. This book is Brent’s firsthand account of his journey, written in all five senses, with the hope that his story will motivate and inspire others to see that any seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcome. |
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Testimonials
"I just got done reading all 417 pages of Brent Worrall’s newly penned classic, MOTOCROSS SAVED MY LIFE FROM ITS DARKNESS.
Have you ever dared to compete? To risk, to dare, to dream? To plunk down your hard-earned cash to throw your hat into the ring and see what you’re made of? To fail repeatedly until you dominate?
Have you seen the depths of depression that life can bring you? Have you failed at life? Have you let down all of the people around you, including parents, kids and friends? Have you driven away everyone you know to live in the pits of misery and anguish?
Have you suffered unimaginable physical injuries, with tremendous initial pain and ongoing agony every day for life?
Do you think you have it bad?
You might get some inspiration from Brent’s book. There are nuggets of wisdom and good advice. He tells his story with self-effacing humility, with abject honesty, which is refreshing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear what he had to say. There are so many lessons we can learn from his story, astonishing revelations about being self-loathing, regretful, making mistake after mistake, helplessly drawn back into a vortex of self-destruction. When you’ve hit rock bottom, how do you find a way to crawl back up? When you hit it over and over and over, now what? When your body has been abused for years and it’s had enough and you just keep hammering it into the ground and it reaches the very brink of survivability, what do you do? When you’re your own worst enemy, how do you change your life?
He’s a survivor, that’s for sure. He’s been physically hurt far worse than most of my friends. Imagine going off a huge jump, hitting a false neutral and going over the bars on a 100 foot downhill triple, flying 130 feet to land on your back and shattering many vertebrae, all of your ribs, clavicle and other bones. Imagine your entire spine being cut open with an eight hour operation. A $30,000 medical plane ride. Medical bills that nobody wanted to pay for. Over 40 bladder infections! Having to self-catheterize often!
I spent the last week crying as I read what he’s been through.
I recommend this book to anybody who has been a motocrosser, anybody who has been addicted, to people who abuse alcohol, who abuse gambling, who have hit rock bottom, who have been horribly injured, who have let others down and who have regrets.
Brent, thank you for telling your story."
-Roger Wells, aka Johnny Airtime, legendary stunt man and most successful ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumper in history.
“Thoughtfully composed, oftentimes painstakingly written, former motocross superstar Brent Worrall offers the reader an honest and unapologetic examination of his own life, revealing a gritty and comprehensive narrative of both “dream-come-true” moments, and shocking encounters with death incarnate. Brent’s autobiographical account is a bold and audacious statement of VICTORY over personal demons, and is a stunning and inspirational testament about the perseverance of the human spirt.”
-Kevin G. Lefebvre, MA, RCC Psychotherapist
“Aspiring to achieve one's full potential through sport, regardless what form life's challenges might take. This is Paralympism - and this is Brent. Through a peer support connection, which is such a critical piece to rebuilding lives after a spinal cord injury, I have had the privilege of getting to know Brent and witness first hand how he has faced many adversities head on with his incredible tenacity, determination, strength and courage. With his love of sport and community, Brent has become a difference maker in the lives of those around him! Through very dark times you always found your way back to the light! What a powerful story and legacy you have created with your life's journey thus far, and I hope you continue to uncover and discover your true self.”
-Sonja Gaudet, 3 Time Paralympic Gold Medalist
“Over the course of the 40 plus years that I've spent hanging around the sport of the motocross, very few people have inspired me the way Brent Worrall has. Through his determination to overcome adversity, I know that at times it has made me stop and remember that we should really only be living in the moment. I first met Brent just a day prior to his life altering accident at Walton Raceway in 2011. He had introduced himself and mentioned to me how much he enjoyed reading the Walton TransCan event program I had put together. He left a lasting impression on me that day and since then we have become good friends. In life, when you face the type of challenges that Brent has had to face since that fateful day in Walton, ON, you can either sink or swim. I think we can all agree that not only did Brent chose to swim, but has since swam as if he had been born in the water. Brent has also taught me that life is a gift and that we should cherish every good day we have, because you never quite know what is around the next corner, or over the next jump.”
-Chris Pomeroy, Editor at Motocross Performance Magazine and former top Pro National Motocross racer
Have you ever dared to compete? To risk, to dare, to dream? To plunk down your hard-earned cash to throw your hat into the ring and see what you’re made of? To fail repeatedly until you dominate?
Have you seen the depths of depression that life can bring you? Have you failed at life? Have you let down all of the people around you, including parents, kids and friends? Have you driven away everyone you know to live in the pits of misery and anguish?
Have you suffered unimaginable physical injuries, with tremendous initial pain and ongoing agony every day for life?
Do you think you have it bad?
You might get some inspiration from Brent’s book. There are nuggets of wisdom and good advice. He tells his story with self-effacing humility, with abject honesty, which is refreshing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear what he had to say. There are so many lessons we can learn from his story, astonishing revelations about being self-loathing, regretful, making mistake after mistake, helplessly drawn back into a vortex of self-destruction. When you’ve hit rock bottom, how do you find a way to crawl back up? When you hit it over and over and over, now what? When your body has been abused for years and it’s had enough and you just keep hammering it into the ground and it reaches the very brink of survivability, what do you do? When you’re your own worst enemy, how do you change your life?
He’s a survivor, that’s for sure. He’s been physically hurt far worse than most of my friends. Imagine going off a huge jump, hitting a false neutral and going over the bars on a 100 foot downhill triple, flying 130 feet to land on your back and shattering many vertebrae, all of your ribs, clavicle and other bones. Imagine your entire spine being cut open with an eight hour operation. A $30,000 medical plane ride. Medical bills that nobody wanted to pay for. Over 40 bladder infections! Having to self-catheterize often!
I spent the last week crying as I read what he’s been through.
I recommend this book to anybody who has been a motocrosser, anybody who has been addicted, to people who abuse alcohol, who abuse gambling, who have hit rock bottom, who have been horribly injured, who have let others down and who have regrets.
Brent, thank you for telling your story."
-Roger Wells, aka Johnny Airtime, legendary stunt man and most successful ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumper in history.
“Thoughtfully composed, oftentimes painstakingly written, former motocross superstar Brent Worrall offers the reader an honest and unapologetic examination of his own life, revealing a gritty and comprehensive narrative of both “dream-come-true” moments, and shocking encounters with death incarnate. Brent’s autobiographical account is a bold and audacious statement of VICTORY over personal demons, and is a stunning and inspirational testament about the perseverance of the human spirt.”
-Kevin G. Lefebvre, MA, RCC Psychotherapist
“Aspiring to achieve one's full potential through sport, regardless what form life's challenges might take. This is Paralympism - and this is Brent. Through a peer support connection, which is such a critical piece to rebuilding lives after a spinal cord injury, I have had the privilege of getting to know Brent and witness first hand how he has faced many adversities head on with his incredible tenacity, determination, strength and courage. With his love of sport and community, Brent has become a difference maker in the lives of those around him! Through very dark times you always found your way back to the light! What a powerful story and legacy you have created with your life's journey thus far, and I hope you continue to uncover and discover your true self.”
-Sonja Gaudet, 3 Time Paralympic Gold Medalist
“Over the course of the 40 plus years that I've spent hanging around the sport of the motocross, very few people have inspired me the way Brent Worrall has. Through his determination to overcome adversity, I know that at times it has made me stop and remember that we should really only be living in the moment. I first met Brent just a day prior to his life altering accident at Walton Raceway in 2011. He had introduced himself and mentioned to me how much he enjoyed reading the Walton TransCan event program I had put together. He left a lasting impression on me that day and since then we have become good friends. In life, when you face the type of challenges that Brent has had to face since that fateful day in Walton, ON, you can either sink or swim. I think we can all agree that not only did Brent chose to swim, but has since swam as if he had been born in the water. Brent has also taught me that life is a gift and that we should cherish every good day we have, because you never quite know what is around the next corner, or over the next jump.”
-Chris Pomeroy, Editor at Motocross Performance Magazine and former top Pro National Motocross racer
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