Kamikaze Games: House of the rising sun

Mammoth Mountain is gearing up—literally—for one of its largest events of the season: The Mammoth Kamikaze Bike Games. The Kamikaze, which takes place Sept. 18-21, is known as one of the longest-running, although not continuous, mountain biking events in the country.

According to Senior Vice President of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area (MMSA), Bill Cockroft, the history of the Kamikaze Games began in 1983 when he helped put on a bike event at the Mountain. In 1985, Sam Walker of Whiskey Creek asked Cockroft, “What would it take to put on a major bike event in Mammoth Lakes?” Cockroft’s answer: $10,000.

Cockroft and Walker secured a marketing sponsor and started the Whiskey Creek Stage Race, which included the Mammoth Kamikaze Bike Games. The Games get their name from the Kamikaze trail that Cockroft named in 1985. The trail “is legendary in a lot of people’s minds,” as bikers can travel up to 60 miles per hour, Cockroft said.

The following year, Mammoth Mountain took over production of the event and also hosted the first World Mountain Biking Championships in 1987-89. Cockroft was inducted into the Mountain Biking Hall of Fame in 1994 for promotion

of mountain biking through racing.

In 1996 MMSA handed over the road biking race to the High Sierra Fall Century. The Kamikaze Games continued without glitch until 2001, when MMSA was involved in a major construction project— the Village at Mammoth and the Canyon Gondola.

“It caused us to take a break” from the Kamikaze Games, Cockroft said.  “One thing led to another and we didn’t have races again until ‘04 and ‘05 … but it just didn’t seem to be very popular,” he continued. So MMSA discontinued the event again.

The Games returned in 2013, after Mammoth CEO Rustry Gregory and the then Town Mayor, Mathew Lehman, were having a “casual chat” and “thinking of ways of bringing back tourism in the shoulder season,” Cockroft said.

“Last year was the re-birth of Mammoth Mountain as a racing venue,” Cockroft said. MMSA also started producing the High Sierra Fall Century again, and both biking events were on the same weekend.

This year, MMSA decided to split up the two events due to “conflicts with other races in the mountain biking circuit,” Cockroft said. He spoke to The Sheet from Las Vegas, where he is currently promoting the event at Interbike, the largest exposition and trade show in the bicycle industry. “We asked people what was convenient for them. This way they can get the business part down [at Interbike] and then come and do the race with us.”

Cockroft is expecting about 1,000 participants this year as opposed to 800 in 2013. There are kid’s races, as well as downhill, dual slalom, cross-country, and speed and style races. The Legends of Kamikaze is an invitational race where 40 “downhill legends” ride the Kamikaze trail and “race against themselves,” said Cockroft. The Enduro race 2014 is already sold out, with 300 entrants.

New this year, the Cyclo-Cross race, modeled off of European races, is “a combination of cycling on varied terrain with obstacles,” according to Cockroft. The race can be viewed at Canyon Lodge on Friday, September 19 at 5 p.m. and “is very exciting to watch,” he said.

All the proceeds from the Kamikaze Games go towards the Mammoth Mountain Community Foundation (MMCF), which supports both athletic and educational programs for youth in Mammoth. Since 2010, the foundation has given over $800,000 to athletic programs, including a summer cross-training program that supports winter athletes on the ski and snowboard teams. They have also given more than $1 million to Mammoth Unified School District.

And MMCF is in the process of developing a High School Mountain Bike Team. “We are still trying to figure out how the season would work out, [but] we would like to start it in 2015,” said Lindsay Barksdale, Executive Director of MMCF. It will be a fall sport at the High School and “we could use next year’s Kamikaze Games as a High School Event,” she said.

The Mammoth Kamikaze Bike Games will take place Sept. 18-21 at Mammoth Mountain Bike Park and are sponsored by Sony Action Cam. See the insert in The Sheet for the full schedule and more information, or visit kamikazebikegames.com.