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X Games 7/28-31/11

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We picked up Madi and Dexton Monday afternoon, stopped to take a pic of the LAX sign and then headed out to dinner with my buddy BP and then do some go-karting! BP works at the San Bernadino Raceway, so even some of the other employees got out and joined us in an all-out race for bragging rights…which I won over BP, but one other employee beat me, ulwell.

Tuesday we went up to the Hollywood area, the girls wanted to walk down Rodeo Dr. Holy crap there is some expensive stuff there, so needless to say we walked a lot more and bought a lot less stuff then we normally would have. After that we went up to the Hollywood sign and took a bunch of pics there. I had seen it before, but only from a distance, it was kind of cool getting out and walking up as close as you can to it, which is still prob ¼ mile. We also walked a bit on Hollywood Blvd before it got late and we headed back to the hotel.

Wednesday we headed out for Venice Beach. We stayed in the City of Industry, which is about 25 miles from downtown and prob 30 miles or so from the beach. In LA traffic at 8am, that was a mistake, lol. It was over 2 ½ hours to get to the beach, but we still got to walk quite a bit and see a few of the street performers there. We saw the Santa Monica Pier with all the rides and real touristy attractions. Then we headed out for the X Games Kickoff Party. It was at the X Games venue and was a fund raiser for the “V Foundation” which is a cancer research charity.

Thursday we went back up to Hollywood Blvd for a few more things there, to look at the Stars and what not in the daylight. Then headed over to X Games about 3pm ish. It was Step Up, Best Whip, and Best Trick for Moto X night. So we pretty much stayed at the moto venue and watched the guys tear it up….and themselves! Step up was great, congrats to Matt Buyten for setting a new Step Up world record of 37’ on his way to winning I think his 4th Gold Medal, Renner took the Silver Medal. Best Whip was absolutely insane; those guys were throwing down and getting beyond flat and sideways. I’ll post some pics of that! Unfortunately it was a fan text to vote contest, so it turned into a popularity contest. I’m good friends with Twitch, but even he has to know he should not have won that comp. Jared McNeil and Thomas Page were in a whole other league from the rest of the guys, Potter was a close 2nd, but the official results were Twitch, Potter, McNeil, Adams, and Page. The Best Trick was insane as well; Josh Sheehan landed his first double flip attempt super smooth like it was nothing for Bronze medal. Cam Sinclair did a Nac Nac Double Back flip for a Silver medal. Jackson Strong came out of nowhere to win the Gold with a 75 foot off axis front flip. TP crashed doing his cash roll twice,
breaking his leg pretty bad on the 2nd attempt (so bummed for that guy). Mark Monea, also crashed doing a no handed front flip on the 45 foot ramp, but he got up and walked away. Unfortunately Bilko,

Loza and Maddison had back out of the contest before it started (I believe due to injury), so those 3 were not able to defend their medals.

Friday we went straight for the X Games, it was FMX inside Staples Center as well as some BMX park and Skate Board Big Air. The FMX guys were really throwing down from a technical aspect. Dani Torres did a McMetz into Cliff Hanger (extremely hard to do). Nate Adams did a one handed take off back flip on the 75 footer into a NacNac flip, as well as a fender grab 360 and a big 90ft under flip. Mason had one of the biggest Holy Grabs I have ever seen, and then everyone else with big flip tricks like cliff hanger flips, Cordova flips, lazy boy to no hander lander flips, even double grab flips. I mean those are all Best Trick contest tricks from 2 years ago, now being done in a regular FMX run like they are nothing….it was super cool to watch! Skate Big Air was cool, Bob Burnquist claimed yet another Gold Medal in that comp, they need to change the name to the Bob comp, lol. I still can’t imagine even dropping in on that ramp on a skate board.

Saturday was Rally Car Racing, Skate Board Vert, and Speed & Style. All I can say about the rally car is there was some major upsets. Travis had hand controls mounted on his car to race the Rally Cross on Sunday. It was fun seeing a bunch of my old rally buddies that I hadn’t talked to in quite a while. Skate vert was a good battle between PLG going for the 4 peat and Shawn White. Shawn ended up taking the Gold home! Speed & Style, Nate Adams and Mike Mason were in a class all their own; they had good speed and were throwing down good flip tricks. Nate ended up taking his second Gold for the week!

Sunday was Enduro X day and Rally Cross. I didn’t get to watch any of the Rally Cross in person, only bits and pieces on the jumbo tron in between practice sessions. The course really didn’t look as gnarly as it turned out to be. I have always felt I got thru the rock sections pretty good, but they absolutely kicked my butt this time. I think the 1st practice session I went down 2 or 3 times in the small rock section in 5 laps. 2nd practice session I think I only fell once. The hot lap qualifier I did okay, was just nervous and tried to ride too hard, I didn’t fall, but know I could have easily shaved 3-5 seconds off just by being a little smoother. So I think I qualified around 20th out of 30. Practice was okay, tough, but okay; they didn’t add the water to the water crossing until hot laps and then they watered the rock sections before the heat races. I know I saw at least 10 guys fall on the big rock section in the middle on their parade lap. The middle section was just gnarly, once it got wet it was really hard to get up and then going down the backside it had big boulders with a gap between them and the big log before a 4 ft
drop, once everything got wet it was like ice out there. My first heat race I had an outside gate pick, so I tried to just wait let everyone crash and sneak around them. My plan was working well until someone else tried to go around and they crashed into me blocking all of us. I got out of the 1st turn I think around 8th. The jumbo tron had me running in 5th for most of the race, so apparently some people fell before I started falling a bunch. I got hung up in the small rock section trying to pass a guy on the inside.

I planted my right foot and went to do a wheelie turn thing, and the rear tire caught major traction and just shot right out from under me. I was holding the handle bars and the bike was back flipping right out from under me. So I kind of threw it and the bike almost did a full ghost ride back flip, it was also right when Mike Brown was lapping me, so it made the TV highlights!!! After getting up from that crash about a lap later I came up short on the jump into the water over the log (funny thing is I remember in track walk talking about how bad it would suck to case that log). I really thought I was going to wheel tap off the log, but it just stopped me and face planted me into the concrete bank on the other side. I had bruised my palm in one of my practice crashes and this just made it flare up even more. After getting out of the water crossing I had no speed to get up the big rock section in the middle and also couldn’t pull the clutch in because of my palm. So I didn’t quite make it to the top of the hill and slid back down. At that point racing was completely out of the question, it was like Erzberg…..I was going to
finish that race no matter what. So I rode backwards on the track to get enough of a run at the obstacle to get up and over it. Luckily I was only about 2 corners from the checkered flag, because it was a very welcome site. Somehow I was in the 3rd heat, but the 1st LCQ, so I had less than 10 minutes to recover before going back out. Just riding up to the line, I had no idea how I was going to finish the race as my palm was swollen and I couldn’t even start to pull the clutch in, I was using my pinky and ring finger to get the clutch in. I tried on the start and got out about 5th, but got bumped around in the 1st lap back to 8th ish. When we hit the rock section for the 1st time I just gave up, it’s really hard to go thru the little rocks without being able to modulate the clutch and I was obviously not going to make it to the main as they only took the top 2, so I ended my Enduro X debut by pulling off the track early. I felt so crappy
quitting and only after the race I remembered the Lance Armstrong quote “pain is temporary, quitting is forever”. But I’m actually glad I did quit, my hand is feeling better now, had I kept riding it would probably still be sore when I try to ride at Craig Morgan’s Charity Ride next weekend. The main event for Enduro X and the Women’s Enduro X was gnarly. Those girls are gladiators, Tara Geiger fell in the 1st turn and came back to win it, another girl popped her shoulder out in the 1st turn and kept riding after popping it back in. I know every girl on the track fell at some point and most of them fell off the top of the big rock in the middle, they were just brutal. If it had been a boxing match, someone would have thrown in the white towel, but amazingly enough they all finished the race. The men’s race I think everyone in that race fell as well, you could tell it was absolutely so slick the guys could barely even stand up, but then at the same time they were going sooo fast that they looked like they were riding a dry track, it was crazy. Major congrats to Taddy Blazuziak for taking the Gold in the 1st ever Enduro X!!!
I had a blast doing the race and was proud to be a part of the new event at X Games. I promise between now and next year I will do some practice and testing on the bike, so if I get a call with a week’s notice I will be somewhat prepared!

As soon as the races were over we headed out and pinned it back to OK. Unpacked, washed the bike, washed clothes, and headed out again. We headed to Alabama to get Brooks and then will head out to Dickson, TN Friday for Craig Charity Ride Day. If you live in the Nashville area or anywhere near there, come on out, bring a bike, and do some trail riding, watch some great music and support a great cause!!!

Cowboy Kenny #690