Having adaptive events televised in the X Games is huge. There are people out there who might want to do this but don't think they can. They can see us out here tearing it up. That's going to help people realize that if you want something bad enough, you can get there.
Snowboarding and skiing are big adaptive sports, so that's kind of a market that I wanted to make our equipment used for.
To me, there's two symbols for Team U.S.A.: the national anthem and the American flag.
A lot of the jobs I had revolved around metal fabrication and creating and building and maintaining equipment.
When you walk, you need the leg to swing back and forth underneath you. It needs to flex at a certain point, then extend as you follow through your gait. Now, that function doesn't really help at all while I'm standing on my dirt bike or snowmobile.
Once I started feeling better and healthier and learned to walk on my first prosthetic leg, I realised I'm not going to be satisfied with just walking around.
It's kind of mind-blowing what some of us adaptive athletes can accomplish as far as physical sports.
Having already used a Fox shock in my Moto Knee, the prosthetic leg I developed, I knew that I would take advantage of Fox's superior suspension dynamics in the Versa Foot as well.
I am the owner of my prosthetic manufacturing business, BioDapt, which manufactures lower-limb prosthetics for sports.
When I originally started looking at different prosthetic components, most of them were just set up for walking.
Building prosthetics that allow people to get back to the fun activities in life is as rewarding a job as I can imagine. It's just as fulfilling for me as winning at the racetrack.
The crazy part, with all of the surgeries I had, I retained water from the IV fluids, and I gained 60 pounds. I was 247 pounds at my maximum. I couldn't even touch my face because my joints were swollen. I was so big, it was ridiculous - just insane.
