Now that I have enough dust on my laptop to make my own motocross course, it's time to sign off for another year. What started with a bang, better known as Jake Brown hitting the deck, ended with a thud, as Tanner Foust and Ken Block bounced off each other as they crossed the finish line in the Rally Car racing.
I think what stood out most was not Brown's terrifying fall -- I've seen it enough times that I no longer cringe -- but the way the crowd went from pure elation after seeing him nail that first-ever 720 to dead silence after he hit the floor. The crowd's reaction was completely opposite of my other biggest X Games memory, when Travis Pastrana nailed that double back flip last year. In that case, the crowd was real quiet as he approached the ramp and shot into the air, then burst out with excitement when he landed it safely.
As much flak as ESPN gets from some of my fellow journalists who cover the X Games, they do put on a good show. Like Foust said after his victory today, "Somehow, they create a format that has these great finishes.''
So Travis Pastrana won the final event held at the X Games -- the bronze medal in the Rally Car racing final. Pastrana, who finished first in his semifinal thanks to a brilliant turn about 70 yards from the finish line, was disqualified because of an inadvertent collision he caused on the final turn, only about 20 yards from the checkered flag. So instead of going for gold, he settled on the bronze.
Still, the slew of spinouts he performed as a celebration made it seem like he had just won a crown. And the fan reaction -- about two-thirds of the seats were filled -- was in the same vein. Pastrana and Shaun White and Tony Hawk and now Jake Brown and a bunch of the other athletes (right, Jaime?) get props from the fans no matter what their official finish (White - 1st, Pastana - 3rd, Hawk - no scored events, Brown - 2nd). And that might be one of the best things about X Games. These guys who are the favorites have proved themselves, but they're respected no matter how they finish in a given event, so long as they try.
Based on the overall attendance, X Games 13 was a success. I think the concept of a split-stadium format could be taken away, but all-in-all it worked quite well. They certainly sold enough seats in Staples to merit the extra venue, and the plan is to keep events there next year, as well.
The crowd has cleared out fairly quickly since the end of the Rally Car races, and the spirit of X Games (rough, fun, fast, intense) is getting going. There are a couple of things we'll need to think about in the future:
1. Waste. X Games made a conscious effort this year to promote its "environmentality," but the amount of excess fuel used in these events will always make eco-friendly watchers cringe. In response, the X Games has set up clearly labeled compost (food, paper), recycling (cans, bottles) and trash (plates, utensils) bins. Last year, X Games reports, "12.71% of event waste was diverted from the landfill. This year, the "X Rider" program gave token rewards to those who carpooled with four riders or more. And the dirt used in Moto X will be reused, they say.
That's a good start, but long-distance transporting of 360 truckloads of soil can be worse for the environment than simply restoring the dirt to its initial place. One action that worries me more, however, is that the X Games will be planting "5,000 trees in California this year to assist with reforestation efforts following [the] devastating fires in the region." Many, if not most, environmentalists, however, would criticize that drive simply because, while wildfires can be human-caused, most are actually beneficial in restoring and revitalizing the ecosystem of struggling natural systems. For the same reason forest-thinning is controversial, so would be a plan to artificially exponent the growth of vulnerable forests.
2. EXPN.com. The Web site that runs all the information for the X Games is so far behind ESPN's flagship Web site that the two are hardly comparable. Part of the reason X Games doesn't get more coverage in newspapers nationally is because of the limited knowledge of the sports, the difficulty in analyzing the maneuvers pulled off by the athletes and comparing current performances to the past. In fact, a quick search of past X Games results shows that ESPN only has top-3 finishers for the first decade of the X Games or so. The media guide is barely 30 pages. Compare that with, say, college football, whose media guides the NCAA had to limit to about 200 pages a few years back because they were becoming to big (partly because they were becoming recruiting guides). Still, in the local paper in upstate New York and central Kansas and the panhandle of Florida, X Games typically gets reserved for the "briefs." That's not where it wants to be. Better access to print media would probably help ESPN draw more viewers who would then read about the events, but the biggest issue is information on the Web. If there were a one-stop-shop for action sports history like there were for, again, college football (College Football Data Warehouse), then X Games could draw some bigger TV numbers.
3. Injuries. This is where the events are only going to get worse. While the spectacular crashes can lead to a ratings bonanza (more than 2 million people have watched Jake Brown's fall on YouTube), it is also going to throw horror into the minds of fans and could lead to the dreaded government investigations. (Remember, there was a time when Teddy Roosevelt's administration was all but ready to demand the end of football when more than a dozen players died in a year. The result, which has been ruining college sports since 1906, was the NCAA. The organization was known as the IAAUS until 1910.) Hopefully, we don't see a life-long injury or a death out here at the X Games, but I'm not optimistic. The ramps here are the biggest ones of the year. About 25% higher ramps in the park events and a mega-ramp with the sports' most prestigious medals on the line are combinations for disaster. We nearly saw one with Brown's fall.
But the summer X Games are still in a good place. Unlike winter X, which still struggles mightily to attract advertisers, according to this internal ESPN memo, provided by Deadspin:
We have an ongoing communication among marketing, production and programming designed to ensure that when we have lower demand we give advertising inventory to promotion. Winter X Games being a prime example of that process in action.
Hopefully, X Games can evolve and mature at a gradual pace and become a staple of the sports scene. It would be good for everyone. (And, hopefully we might see the day when parking-price gouging is abandoned because ESPN and AEG realize that their practices simply aren't right.)
But this week, it was positive. It was good. And it's a very, very nice sign to see that X Games haven't peaked. Because if it had, ESPN's decade-and-a-half investment in action sports -- a good thing in itself -- inevitably would have gone to waste.
Actually, Chrissie Beavis and Tanner Foust won. The Yankees may have won also, but I don't know. However, I do know that the best stories from the Rally Car race came from the second and third place finishers.
Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom, who got the bronze, lost to Beavis and Foust in the semis. Well, they were disqualified, actually.
Pastrana and Edstrom sold out on the final turn and when they came to the finish line they were unable to fully control their car and went into Beavis and Foust's lane to reach the finish line first. I didn't here an official word, but I'm sure they were DQ'd because they crossed over to the other lane.
In the quarterfinals, Ken Block and Alessandro Gelsomino, the silver medalists, finished the race without one of their front tires. Block and Gelsomino lost their tire on the final lap when they hit a barrier. They could have stopped right there since the other car had also gotten into an accident and was no longer moving, but they came back into the stadium (minus their front tire) and crossed the finished line with three tires and one very wasted rim.
It was an unbelievable site, to say the least. One of my top five moments of these X Games.
So, with that, here are my Five Best Moments of XG XIII.
5- Daniel Dhers. Dhers won the BMX street park final, but that's not the reason he's No. 5. the No. 5 moment was the long walk I shared with him and his family to the media center (read previous blog on subject).
4- Bob Burnquist, immediately after Jake Brown's injury, doing the jump of his life to win the Skateboard big air gold medal. Burnquist pushed aside all kinds of thoughts and landed a no-handed 360 across a 70-foot gap, into a 19-foot 6-inch McTwist above the 27-foot quarterpipe to score a 95.33 and win the gold. Clutch.
3- Chris Cole's double 360 kickflip to win the Skateboard best trick event. Cole was trying to land that trick the entire competition. At the halfway point of the event no one had done anything special and I turned to Dan Arritt and said, "if Cole lands that trick he's going to win it." And with about two minutes left he landed it. Perseverance.
2- Block and Gelsomino driving into the stadium without one of their tires. The crowd got up and cheered them on, I got up and raised my arms as if to say, what else is going to happen at the X Games.
1- Jake Brown's horrifying crash on the mega-ramp. Even though he didn't win the gold medal, Jake Brown is the standout star athlete of these X Games. And his crash is the standout moment.
Feel free to share your Top 5. In fact, I encourage you to do so.
But officials won't say if any athletes failed a test for drinking too much Red Bull, Monster, RockStar or for smoking marijuana.
Actually, I'm not sure if there testing goes on at the X Games or not. I was just sitting here in the press box thinking about how I get to go back to cover "normal" sports now that the X Games are over. You know, the ones that are tainted by claims of steroid use, alleged gambling scandals and dogfighting.
Other than the fact that today I had to pay $40 for parking, the X Games have been a breath of fresh air ... or puff of marijuana.
That's the only way to describe about half of the cars who participated in the quarterfinals of the rally car event. It's also the only way to describe the track after a slew of wrecks. Two Catepillar mini-dumps are working overtime right now, trying to get the course set up for the final runs. Jaime and I have been talking about this all week, and it's going to take the Galaxy and Chivas soccer teams quite a while to get this place back in shape.
And based on what our esteemed colleague Grahame Jones wrote in today's paper, you wonderif David Beckham won't delay his home debut so as not to risk injuring his ankle on what could be very loose new sod. Jaime thinks it's inevitable that Beckham won't play in the SuperLiga match here on August 15, but I'm thinking he will.
As you may have imagined, when I first got to the X Games and saw all the "athletes this way" or "athlete registration" and "athlete only" signs, I laughed. How could I not. I'm trained to think of athletes as people who jump, run and/or catch.
I don't even consider golfers, NASCAR drivers or hot-dog eating competitors athletes, so how was I going to look at these guys as athletes?
Well, I should have. These guys are athletes. And the fact that an Olympic athlete (in snowboarding, but an Olympic athlete nonetheless), just won gold medal at the X Games proves it. I'm sorry for ever doubting them.
I talked to members of the media, fans, X Games athletes and non X Games athletes. Here is a small sampling of some of the best responses I got.
Skateboarder Chris Cole, who is consistently training when on tour and practices three or four days of the week when he is not, probably had the best answer: "Yeah, we're athletes. I don't think a fat person could do what we do, so yeah, we're athletes."
Sacha Kljestan, soccer player on Chivas USA, said: "To do skating or biking or stuff like that you have to be pretty athletic, so I think they are athletes. I don't think they are far below, but they are not up high like basketball athletes or football players."
Scott Bair, action sports columnist for the North County Times (daily newspaper in San Diego County): "It's not just the level of risk, it's just anytime that you get thrown up 30 feet in the air and then pull a motorcycle back under you ... probably takes some strength and flexibility and athleticism to get all that stuff done. So athletes, no doubt."
Tony Hawk, skateboarding legend: "I don’t really care. They can call us artists, athletes, outcasts, whatever, I’ve heard it all. As long we get to do this for a living, it doesn’t matter to me what you call us.”
Tony Hawk, aka "The Birdman", aka "The Hawk", aka "the best skateboarder ever," talked to three reporters after the legends vert jam session ended Sunday around noon.
It was eight years ago that Hawk crossed over into mainstream media when he landed the first ever 900-degree spin on a vert ramp during the X Games in 1999. I can't believe it was that long ago. I could have sworn that was three or four years ago. And apparently neither could Tony when I reminded him it was eight years ago.
"No," I can't believe it was that long, and it's still hard" to do.
Everyone knows Tony Hawk, even a lot non-skating people know who Tony Hawk is, but not everyone at the X Games (especially not the 10 or 12 year olds, I think) know who Mike McGill, Christian Hosoi, Duane Peters or even Caballero are or were.
"I think it's important for them too see the history and see the progression of how far it's gone, especially (because) right after we skate the absolutely newest best guys come and skate. And they see how much the level has been raised, but also were the influences where. I think it's important for kids to understand that and appreciate it."
We're through nearly half a dozen of the one-on-one rally races and so far it's been nothing spectacular. Here's the problem with this event: it's not an action sport, except the drivers are on dirt so they expect it to be just as exciting as Moto X. It isn't, and it's not even close. Basically, this course is a glorified Watkins-Glenn with a few hundred yards of uneven surface added on, plus the (so far) tame jump. And, because of that, the stadium is only about one-fifth full. Maybe a quarter of capacity, but I doubt it. The event just doesn't fit in with the rest of the competitions here. I doubt it ever will.
On the bright side, there's currently a man or woman wearing a zebra suit as homage to one of the riders -- a mascot, if you will. If it weren't 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky, I'd be tempted to see if I could play zebra. Not today.
Go ahead and copyright this song, I don't have time......
Well the south side of Los Angeles is the baddest part of town, and if you go down to Staples Center you better just beware of a man named Jake Brown. Now Jake got in trouble, you see he stands about 5 feet 4, he nailed the first-ever 720 on a mega ramp, then decided to go for more.
Now Jake is a gambler, and likes to wear his baggy clothes. And he likes to get the highest air, but this time he should have bailed. His got squirrely heading up the quarterpipe, so he tried to get under control. He flailed his limbs as he soared in the air, then looked to see what was below.
And its bad, bad Jake Brown, the baddest skater in the whole [darn] town, badder than an old Bob Burnquist, but nicer than Bucky Lasek.
He wears pads all over his body and a helmet on his head, but when you fall from 45 feet, you usually end up dead. But Jake knows how to fall, he's been doing it since he first began to walk, so he picked out a spot and you better just beward, he didn't end up outlined with chalk.
And its bad, bad Jake Brown, the baddest skater in the whole [darn] town, badder than an old Bob Burnquist, but nicer than Danny Way
The crowd went silent, as Jake slammed into the floor. He looked like a rag doll, and the squeemish headed for the door. Then he did something remarkable, he rolled over and stood up. The crowd slowly started to applaud, the began to erupt.
And its bad, bad Jake Brown, the baddest skater in the whole [darn] town, badder than an old Bob Burnquist, but nicer than Danny Way.
Dan Arritt (center), Times writer and O.C. native, has covered high school, college, the X Games and professional sports ranging from football to surfing in his two decades with The Times.
Jaime Cardenas (left), a Times intern and San Diego native who grew up in Tijuana with a passion for sports and writing, is a recent graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He has covered the World Baseball Classic, soccer's Gold Cup and junior college and high school sports.
Ken Fowler, a Times intern and Long Island, N.Y., native who attends the University of Notre Dame, has covered Notre Dame football since 2005 as well as women's basketball, college soccer, fencing and, most recently, the Galaxy (the soccer team, not our part of the universe).
Jaime Cardenas (left), a Times intern and San Diego native who grew up in Tijuana with a passion for sports and writing, is a recent graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He has covered the World Baseball Classic, soccer's Gold Cup and junior college and high school sports.
Ken Fowler, a Times intern and Long Island, N.Y., native who attends the University of Notre Dame, has covered Notre Dame football since 2005 as well as women's basketball, college soccer, fencing and, most recently, the Galaxy (the soccer team, not our part of the universe).