Joi Harris
Joi Harris is the professional bike racer who was tragically killed on the set of “Deadpool 2” after her stunt went terribly wrong.
Harris who was filming a scene for the character Domino, to be played by Zazie Beetz in Vancouver –is said to have lost control of her bike.
Reports say she was performing a stunt inside Shaw Tower near Jack Poole Plaza on Monday. Harris was standing on the bike and slammed into a building. She allegedly went through a glass window. Witnesses said the motorcycle came flying across the street looking like from a ramp because it was in the air and leaving Joi Harris on the road.
Deadpool 2 was supposed to be Harris’s first film as a stunt performer. Most sites say she was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash because her character does not wear a helmet.
Joi allegedly completed several rehearsals of the stunt earlier on Monday but may have lost control after she narrowly missed hitting two pedestrians.
According to an interview she did for Black Girls Ride Magazine, Joi Harris, also known as “SJ Sideways” –became the first professional African American Road Racer in 2014.
In a male dominated sport, Joi became an advocate for women racers. The Brooklyn native first learned how to ride a bike in 2010 at age 25. She often practiced at the New Jersey Motorsports Park.
By 2013 she underwent thousands of hours of training to gain her license. That same year she suffered an injury while training and had to wait until 2014 to be the first African-American woman eligible to compete in the American Motorcycle Association races.
Her most recent event was last month, when she placed 11th in the Combined ThunderBike 300 at the New Jersey Motorsports Park on July 8.
Joi Harris also ran her own blog, where she wrote “I’ve learned to accept that I am not the greatest rider that exists and that there is always something to learn when on track and pushing limits.”
We send our condolences to her family and friends.
