Carl Decker works with the Subaru he uses for rally-car racing in Bend on Monday.

Carl Decker describes the X Games as “the Olympics for people that play video games.”

Everything at the X Games is bigger, crazier, and more dangerous than most mainstream sports.

And when the X Games adds a new event, you can expect it to be the nuttiest of them all.

So as Carl Decker, an accomplished professional mountain biker from Bend, prepares for a chance to race his car in the Summer X Games 16’s new SuperRally event next week in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, this is what he is thinking: “Basically, I’m prepared to total my car — and hoping not to.”

The X Games SuperRally will feature drivers racing four at time on a short indoor course of dirt, paved sections and jumps. Cars are souped up for maximum speed and power. The fastest drivers will work their way through a series of elimination heats to the final.

Decker, 35, is actually an alternate for the event, which is scheduled for Saturday, July 31. But he says he figures he has a 60 to 70 percent chance of competing due to drivers crashing out in the regular rally-racing event to be staged earlier in the day.

“Some guys will have already wrecked and won’t be able to drive,” Decker says.

While he admits that his car — a 1993 Subaru Impreza with a 2006 Subaru STI engine — is inferior to the cars that will be driven by most racers, Decker knows the fastest car does not always win. Cars ahead of Decker could easily crash, he notes, and then he can sail right past them to victory.

“I’m not planning on winning the X Games, but I’ll take my shot,” Decker says. “I don’t have as good a chance as anybody, but my race should be easier to win than regular rally because there’s people running into each other. There could be a clog of rolled-over cars, and I just keep going.”

Decker grew up in Bend, sometimes driving crazily on local back roads. His father, Mike Decker, is a former pursuit specialist for the Oregon State Police who used to teach cops how to chase fugitives.

In typical rally-car racing, drivers race on gravel or dirt roads in road-legal cars, reaching speeds well over 100 mph. Competition is conducted in a point-to-point format, as drivers race against the clock over a series of stages, leaving at regular intervals from checkpoints along the way.

In these events, Decker usually races with his good friend, fellow Bend mountain biker Adam Craig, as his co-driver.

Decker, who began competing in rally racing about three years ago, says the co-driver is almost more important than the driver. As the co-driver, Craig flips through a two-inch-thick manual, deciphering instructions that explain what’s around each blind corner.

Because the SuperRally event is staged on a short, indoor course that the drivers can see in its entirety, no co-driver is needed.

Decker, who says he makes a good living as a pro mountain biker, says he has poured thousands of dollars into his Subaru. But that pales in comparison with what other drivers in the SuperRally event spend on their cars.

“Everybody’s gonna have really cool equipment — and then me,” Decker says. “My equipment is rad for a guy working on his own car, but I’m the only guy working on his own car. These guys spend hundreds of thousands for this race. People are building cars for this race that are going to be quarter-million-dollar cars.”

Decker says he qualified as an alternate for the event by virtue of his 14th-place standing in the Rally America National Championship Series, and because ESPN — which produces and televises the annual X Games — liked his background story as a mountain biker.

Top drivers in the SuperRally field include Tanner Foust, who this season is running five rounds in the European Rallycross Championship, (the format on which the X Games SuperRally is based), and Sverre Isachsen, the defending European Rallycross champion.

“You just can’t describe how violent it is inside the cars,” Foust was recently quoted saying on www.espn.com.

Also in the SuperRally field are action-sports stars who have crossed over into rally racing: BMX rider Dave Mirra and freestyle motocross rider Travis Pastrana.

Pastrana produces and stars in an MTV program called “Nitro Circus,” and it appears that Decker will be welcomed into the action-sports celebrity circle at the X Games.

“The ‘Nitro Circus’ is lending me their RV for the pits,” Decker says. “I’m gonna be part of the ‘Nitro Circus’ crew for the week. It’s going to be a bizarre week.”

Decker began planning his bid for the X Games last year when he found some breaks in his bike-racing schedule. He and Craig competed in rally races in Michigan, Missouri, Washington and Oregon this season. Decker’s performance in the four national championship series races was enough for ESPN to take notice.

“Once we made the car more powerful, it was apparent that we could run with guys that were making the X Games,” Decker says.

But he is careful not to let rally racing interfere with his cycling career, and it appears it has not. Earlier this month, Decker won the All-Mountain World Championships — a cross between cross-country and downhill mountain biking — in Downieville, Calif.

“I have to be sure to take a step back from (rally racing) when I start doing too much,” Decker says. “It’s really tiring trying to do all my own work (on the car), when my job is to race bikes and be competitive.”

Decker was planning to leave today for the X Games, which begin Thursday and run through Sunday, Aug. 1.

For now, he can focus on the thrill of rally racing and a chance for X Games gold.

“When it’s working well, it’s as good as anything out there,” Decker says of rally. “It’s a lot of commitment, a lot of timing, and just being in the zone.

“It’s amazing how fast you can go.”

SuperRally at X Games 16

Summer X Games 16 is set for July 29-Aug. 1 in Los Angeles. SuperRally, in which Bend’s Carl Decker is hoping to compete, is scheduled to be televised on ESPN between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 31.