By: Charity Meier | Novi Note | Published September 3, 2025
NOVI — Adrenaline junkies attending the Michigan State Fair were treated to something new this year — the air stunt antics of Dialed Action, a bicycle motocross and freestyle motocross team.
The BMX/FMX stunt team replaced the Shrine Circus, which had attracted guests to the fair for more than a decade, as the fair’s main attraction.
The performance featured two bicycle motocross performers and two freestyle motocross performers in high-flying stunts across several ramps. Each performance included audience participation, with two attendees sitting at the top of a ramp as the stunt performers jumped over them.
“The opportunity to ride in the state fair is awesome, because I don’t actually get to do a whole lot of things close to home,” said BMX rider Tyler Hill, 30, of Dowagiac.
Hill has been involved in BMX for 15 years but has only been performing full-time for the last six years. He said that he was able to make a career out of his passion for BMX by entering competitions and getting spotted by representatives for companies such as Dialed Action Sports, which is based in New Jersey.
At 48, Scott Murray has been performing professionally for 23 years and said he is the second-oldest freestyle motocross performer in the world. Murray, of Helps, a small town near Escanaba, said it is always good to perform in his home state.
“Crowd participation is always awesome, and when the crowd gets louder, it makes you want to do better and bigger tricks and make them even more exciting, you know,” said Murray, “but freestyle motocross is all about adrenaline. We are all kind of adrenaline junkies in the extreme sports side of things, and we’re always looking for our fix, so to speak. It’s our drug, we want to improve ourselves and really push that edge and really dial in to something that makes people go, ‘Oh, wow.”
Murray said many athletes in the sport come to his home in the Upper Peninsula to train at his facility. He said he would advise people interested in the sport to just start with small jumps and work their way up, always wear a helmet and pads, and to just “take your time.”
“Start small and pad yourself up because you’re going to make mistakes,” Murray said.
Hill advises others interested in the sport to just get involved.
“Just ride bikes and have fun,” he said. “The tricks and things will come eventually. As long as you are having fun, then it will always be good weather.”
Murray’s son Eli, 15, is a second-generation FMX performer and one of the youngest in the sport. However, he does not yet do 75-foot jumps and therefore stood on the sidelines to watch his dad perform. Scott Murray said he loves traveling with his son and seeing his face when he does a trick that he hasn’t done in a while.
“He’s been around it his whole life, so he’s kind of numb to it, so if I can get him to react, it’s great,” Scott Murray said.
“I really think it’s awesome that my dad’s doing shows right now,” Eli Murray said. “It’s an awesome time to be here. State fairs are always fun to go on rides, eat awesome food and play some games, but especially when there’s an FMX or BMX show, you should definitely come and watch it. Honestly, it’s the thrill of seeing if they’re going to be safe or not going to be safe. It’s the excitement of how high they are in the air and doing tricks and what they can do.”
The fair also offered a sea lion show and the traditional fanfare of food, numerous vendors, livestock shows and competitions, live pumpkin carving, and much more.
“It was a great time — just everything, just the whole experience. No drama, just a very good time,” said Mo Willis, of Detroit.
“I came for the food,” Pat Thomas, of Detroit, said. Thomas is Willis’ mother.
Thomas said she really enjoyed the street corn and the elephant ears.
Willis said that time restraints this year put a slight damper on the event, as the fair closed early this year at 8 p.m. each night, and they were not able to use all the ride tickets they purchased. She said the lines were also cut off 15 minutes before the fair closed.
Zakhari Willis, 17, of Detroit, said she loved the food and that she really enjoyed the rides, especially one that was similar to the Demon Drop at Cedar Point. Mo Willis is her mother.
Dave and Nikki Kozak, of Algonac, said they came to the fair with high expectations, as they hadn’t been to the Michigan State Fair since it moved to Novi. They said they decided to come for the Friday Night Flights beer tasting event, and that while they enjoyed the event, they were disappointed in the fair itself.
“I didn’t like it,” Nikki Kozak said of the fair. “It’s just very different. It’s not a fair atmosphere to me.”
“Before, they had stands that were more authentic and authentic food, and now it’s just pop-up stands,” said Dave Kozak.
“It feels more commercialized to me,” Nikki Kozak said. “If you were a person who saw the fair atmosphere back in the day, it’s completely different. It’s changed.”
They said that they did not like having the animals and the food and vendors in the same building and recalled that at the old State Fair grounds, there were separate buildings for everything.
“Animals should be outdoors,” she said. “You can’t have the stink of the animals in with your cheesecake. That’s gross,” she said. “It was a very big surprise to me. Definitely different from the fairs that we normally go to.”
Kozak said that she liked that no minors were allowed to be at the fair without a parent. Both measures were a direct result of the shooting that took place last year.
However, she said she would like to see the fair stay open a little later. She said 8 p.m. is pretty early to close down the fair. She said that with people working especially on Thursday and Friday, later hours would be appreciated.
Marsalis Crenshaw, 24, of Royal Oak, said he enjoyed the fair but thought that it could have been better organized as far as where things were located. He said that although they were given a map, it could have been more detailed.
“The map showed where stuff was, but some things, like I wanted to do, like the sea lions, I thought, ‘Oh that’s inside,’ because all the animals were inside,” he said, “The BMX, I didn’t know where that was at all, because it wasn’t on the map.”
He said that he did get to see the sea lion show, but it was located outside with the carnival rides and not inside with the other animals.
“But I’m not going to lie, I had an amazing time. I rode a lot of rides and I saw a lot of stuff, and the sea lions was outside and that was amazing as well, and for a guy from Royal Oak, this was an amazing experience,” Crenshaw said.
“I want to enjoy all of it, but they just need to organize it,” he said.
Liberty Justice, 23, of Troy, said that she would have liked to have been able to see more of the animals, but she really enjoyed the fair, especially the rides.
She said that she liked that they had a lot of big rides, as the rides during Troy Days are a lot smaller and the event is not as big. She said she likes that they have so much to do at the fair.
“I would say this is a good experience, and people should at least come once,” said Justice.