Cameron Naasz is taking the semester off from St. Cloud State, and he recently quit his job at OfficeMax.
The 25-year-old Lakeville native figures there will be plenty of time later for attending classes and stocking shelves. For now, he is busy prepping for another tour with Red Bull Crashed Ice.
As one of two dozen or so athletes who will embark on the two-month worldwide tour that kicks off this weekend at the Cathedral of St. Paul, Naasz is excited to get back daredevil racing.
“It’s kind of a feeling that can’t be replicated,” he said. “I love it.”
Naasz got his start with Red Bull Crashed Ice three years ago. A friend, Nick Simmons, was a student brand manager for Red Bull at the time, and when Crashed Ice came to St. Paul, he was able to get Naasz into the actual competition.
“They gave every student brand manager something called a ‘Prospect Pass’ that we could give out to anyone we thought would be good,” Simmons said. “As soon as I heard that, I automatically thought of him. He was always good at that kind of stuff. I knew he’d be perfect for it.”
Though Naasz had the perfect background — he grew up participating in rollerblading, skateboarding, and snowboarding, among other extreme sports activities, and his mother owned an indoor skate park in Burnsville that was a second home for her son — he was hesitant at first.
“I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” he said. “I was planning on going to the event and just watching in 2012. So when (Simmons) asked me, I was like, ‘I don’t know, man. I’ve seen that kind of stuff before, and I’m not 100 percent sure I want to.’ ”
Simmons eventually persuaded Naasz to compete, and Naasz was named Mini Rookie of the Year as the best newcomer. He was a natural.
“As a kid growing up in Minnesota playing hockey, of course I wanted to play in the NHL,” Naasz said. “I never thought I’d be doing something like this.”
After this weekend’s competition in St. Paul, Naasz and the other races will travel to Helsinki, Belfast and Edmonton on the Red Bull Crashed Ice tour.
Naasz has taken several semesters off from classes at St. Cloud State to compete on the Crashed Ice circuit the past few years, and while he’s on pace to get his degree later this year, he said the sport definitely has delayed the process.
“It takes a lot of sacrifice,” he said. “I don’t know what’s coming next a lot of the time, or even where the next paycheck is coming from. I’ll be set for a while right now, at least until the tour is over, through sponsors and things like that. I don’t know what I’m going to do when the season is over if I don’t do well.”
Though the sport is growing rapidly, it’s nearly impossible for competitors to make a living racing.
Naasz said this season athletes are allowed put as many sponsorships as they want on their jersey, and that puts a few dollars in racers’ pockets. Naasz says he’s thrilled when he can “swing 1,000 bucks or something” from a local business “to help with travel and help pay for food” while on tour.
“There’s some money given out for racing,” he said. “We never really know how much it’s going to be until the season comes around. That’s only for guys that finish in the top eight of races. You have to finish in the top eight out of 128 or so other skaters, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for a lot of athletes to make a living doing it. There’s no athlete out there doing this full time.”
Naasz is optimistic that Crashed Ice competitors someday will able to make a living by racing. He’s also realistic. He knows his body won’t hold up competing in something like this forever, and he’s ready to use his college degree at some point.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger every year, so hopefully down the road guys will actually be able to make a living doing this kind of thing,” he said. “So even though I’m not super young anymore, I’ve got plenty of time to figure out what exactly I want to do with the rest of my life. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else right now.”
Copyright 2015 Pioneer Press.
