That's a wrap from XG XIII
It's over.
Da Yankees Win. DAAA YANKEEEEEES WIN!
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.
Anyways, it's been real.
-- Jaime Cárdenas


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).