Deaf rider has sense for Moto

Ashley Fiolek is considered the gold medal favorite.

CARSON, Calif. (AP) — Ashley Fiolek experiences motocross like no one else, and it’s not because she’s a 17-year-old girl.

In a sport dominated by noise, she can’t hear a thing.

She’s a typical, text-messaging teen, but for two things: She’s a motorsports champion and she’s been completely deaf since birth.

Today she and other female racers will make their X Games debut in the first year of Women’s Moto X Racing.

Fiolek is no mere novelty act. She is the top rider on the AMA/Women’s Motocross Association tour in her rookie year after winning the season’s first three stops. But how does she manage without hearing the rev of the engines, and with such a severely limited knowledge of what’s going on around her?

“That’s probably the question I get the most from other riders is, ‘How do you ride? I, couldn’t do it. I rely so much on my hearing.’ ” Fiolek said through her father Jim, who translates her sign language.

The disadvantages are clear. She can’t hear to know when to shift, though that can be solved by relying more on vibrations. A bigger problem is knowing where her opponents are when they are behind her, which they quite often are. She must pick a path and stick with it.

“She has to hold her line, she can’t cut across the track,” Jim Fiolek said. “Say there’s something in the track she wants to move over, she can’t really move over if she’s committed to that line.”

But the Fioleks say there can be advantages, with a philosophy that might be called “Zen and the art of motorcycle racing.”

They say being oblivious when another rider is bearing down on her can be a sort of blessing.

Both father and daughter talk about the peace she gets amid the chaos, especially at the start of a race, where Fiolek has proven especially potent.

Today’s event, Moto X Racing, was a new event on the men’s side last year. This year it becomes the first women’s motorsport at the X Games.

It’s a leaner, more TV-friendly version of classic supercross, with shorter heats and smaller fields. Keeping track of fewer opponents could play to Fiolek’s advantage, and she’s considered the gold medal favorite.

She insists she doesn’t have a special gift for riding.

“I don’t know if anything was really given to me, I think I worked for it,” she said. “I think I just work hard and I practice a lot and I try to fix the things that are not right with my riding and keep making it better.”