Her right ankle bones are held together with a bunch of bolts and screws. She needs a new left knee. And the arthritis in her fingers gives her fits.

But her brain apparently doesn’t care, because pretty much every day it bleats the same mantra: Mo-to cross! Mo-to cross!

You go, gramma.

Back in the ’80s, Gale Webb made headlines as America’s Motocross Mom. Now that she’s 64 years old and has a grandson, motocross gramma is more like it.

But she could just as easily be skateboard gramma. Or snowboard gramma. Or kamikaze mountain bike gramma.

Not bad for a lady who once jumped out of an airplane with a bum chute and 13,000 feet later smacked into a hillside, breaking her back, neck, legs, ankles, wrists and every finger.

When she woke up, doctors told her she would never lead a normal life again.

Thank God they were right.

***

Gale’s mom was frail and old-fashioned. Her dad was a tall, athletic man with a bad temper. That’s the most she’ll say about them. But she spent much of her childhood in and out of foster homes, a street-smart tomboy trying to look tough in an Army jacket.

By graduation in ’63 she had been through 11 schools. Other kids nicknamed her “gypsy.” But she was a nice gypsy, and instead of seeking solace in drugs or other evils, poured her hyper energy into school sports and daredevil risks on her bicycle.

The risks grew as she did and after high school she was jumping out of airplanes. On a road-trip to Oklahoma with friends, she got an offer to go up in a plane. Someone lent her their chute. Gale stepped out into a free fall and pulled the cord. The chute didn’t open.

Witnesses watched her crash through some trees, glance off a hillside and tumble down the slope. She was in and out of a coma for months. When she awoke, doctors told her to get used to the idea of a wheelchair. And because of the brain trauma, she would have to relearn everything. She’d never lead a normal life, they said.

Remember that hard-knocks childhood? This is where it came in handy. The scrappy little street-wise kid kicked in. “It was on again,” she says.

The next few years remain hazy. Gale slurred her speech. She couldn’t master tying her shoes. But she began lifting sacks of potatoes and cans of beans to rebuild her strength and listening to old Beach Boys’ songs to trigger lost memories.

During this time a girl she had become best friends with in the hospital overdosed on drugs. When Gale saw Moe in the casket, she held her hand and promised to tell whoever would listen the damage drugs can do.

Eventually Gale married a cop named Jimmy. They had a boy named Mike in 1972. The marriage was soon over.

When her son was 4, Gale got him a skateboard. It was 1976. Gale, then 32, gave the board a whirl and was addicted. One day she showed up at her son’s elementary school in Westminster on her own board. The principal saw her do some tricks and asked if she would put on a show.

Gale showed up at the school, told the kids to wear their helmets, stay away from drugs and, most of all, believe in themselves. The kids cheered. Word spread. She started scouting out skate parks for kids to join her show.

One early find was a skinny little skater boy named Tony Hawk. Then there was another skinny little skater boy named Danny Way. And a Long Beach teen named Eddie Fiola, now a BMX biking legend. Soon shows were being sponsored by Vans and drawing crowds of thousands at Knott’s Berry Farm and other large venues across the country.

By now Gale was married to Jim, a Sear’s automotive manager and soul mate. They built ramps in their driveway and turned the garage of their Westminster home in a skateboard hangout with bean bag chairs and speakers that Gale often blew out cranking Judas Priest.

By now Gale was skating drainage ditches and dropping into empty swimming pools with kids all over Orange County. They thought she was the coolest. It’s true she could start a food fight with the best of them; but she used her hero status to hammer home the importance of making right choices, sticking with school and recognizing the time and place for food fights.

“Every single person in her shows could have easily gone down the wrong road,” says Eddie, who gave his 4-year-old daughter the middle name Gale. When the rest of the world was asking Eddie what he was doing still riding his bicycle and telling skateboarders they were punks, Gale was cheering them on, telling them to go for it.

It’s what she did that day in 1982 when she saw the Powder Puff Girls’ dirt bike club put on a demonstration at the OC Swap Meet. By week’s end she was sitting on her own bike at the old Escape Country motocross track in the hills outside Irvine. She was so excited she started crying and her goggles fogged up.

At 38 years old, the daredevil was back, the girl who doctors said wouldn’t walk right or talk right or lead a “normal” life was catching air and crashing her bike with the best of them. In her mid-40s, she went pro, winning two world championships in the women’s over-30 category.

She still races. Kawasaki sponsors her. Sometimes her fingers go numb after a few laps but she just stops and shakes them off and then gets back on the track.

“She’s the real deal,” says best friend Alice Smith.

Alice was there the day they were walking through the Orange County fairgrounds. A girl wearing braces on her legs and leaning on crutches hobbled up to Gale. She said she had been in a car crash. Her twin sister was killed. Doctors told her she would never walk again. “But I kept hearing you say ‘Don’t give up,’” the girl told Gale.

At the end of every skate show she does, Gale gives the cliff notes version of her own story so the kids know she’s not a poser.

“Many years ago, when you guys weren’t even born yet, I jumped out of a plane and my chute didn’t open,” she tells them. “Doctors told me I wouldn’t walk or talk. There were times when I really wanted to give up. But ya know what? I didn’t. You only get one chance at life.”

Mo-to cross! Mo-to cross!