Moto X freestyle put on another good show. The only person carried away on a stretcher was that ESPN cameraman. Nate Adams, who came in second, wasn't a big fan of the new format, which consisted of two-man semifinals, followed by a two-man final.
"The only thing that's not good about it is the pairing up, it can be really lopsided,'' he said. "Someone who has the ability to win can go out in the first round.''
The last few years, there were four or five riders in the final and each took two rounds with the best score counting as their total. I can remember a couple times the last rider clinched the victory before he had to take his second run, so he took it easy and didn't risk injury. Travis Pastrana was in first place last year and didn't make his last run after claiming he slipped and hurt his knee (yeah, right).
Tonight's competition revealed a flaw in the format, however. Jeremy Lusk had a bad crash in his semifinal against eventual winner Adam Jones, landing on his front tire, going over the bars and then getting squashed by his Yamaha. He was too hurt to finish his round and so he got a very beatable score for Jones, who followed. Jones still did his planned run, he just wasn't under as much pressure.
So Barry Bonds hit No. 755 on the same night Simon Tabron did back-to-back 900s. I'd say Bonds' achievement is better, but that's debatable for, well, several reasons.
Anyway, we had a great day here on the Moto X courses inside the soccer stadium and outside with the BMX vert and freestyle park competitions. The guys looked like they wanted to impress, and I think they did. Having Ricky Carmichael win was nice, but it was also good to see guys like Scotty Cranmer and Kevin Robinson and Daniel Dhers and Dave Mirra perform so well.
Jaime just told me that he saw a kid rip an exit sign from the wall in the hallway on the VIP lounge level. Cool, I guess.
Ricky Carmichael might not race in Moto X on any regular basis, but he still can leave everyone in the dust. Carmichael used a tremendous first run to speed out to the lead and never looked back. Carmichael took a four-second lead by the 10th lap and just cruised to the victory.
Carmichael, who is with Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (unlike, well, Little E), has been moving toward the stock car racing in a small-time role with big-time hype. Carmichael looked like he never moved into a doored car and out of the freedom of bikes tonight. It was a great sight, seeing him whip the back of his bike around in joy for the entirety of the last lap.
ESPN got a little too close in the Moto X freestyle elimination round this afternoon and one of its cameramen got taken out by the back wheel of Ronnie Faisst. During the Rally Car event last year, a cameraman also nearly got run over by a car that took a turn too wide.
It seems like the production crew is taking a lot of risks in an attempt to get up-close shots for viewers. Before the cameraman was injured, a couple riders jumped diagonally from one ramp to another and barely cleared one of the cameramen who was perched on top of the landing ramp. After his colleague went down, I noticed ESPN had moved all their cameramen off the jumps.
By the way, a couple minutes after colliding with the cameraman's camera, Faisst crashed on the same jump. He was awarded another run due to interference by the cameraman. How did he fair? Well, he crashed trying the same maneuver over the same jump. This is the same Faisst who was injured during last year's freestyle.
Might be time to switch to Moto X step up, Ronnie.
There's more people at X-Games than at Beckham's first game
Right now Moto X freestyle is going on in the main stadium at Home Depot Center and every seat in the stadium is taken, so is just about every spot on the grassy area underneath the scoreboard. And, here's the crazy thing, the freestyle event is not even the event they are waiting to see. Everyone is waiting for Moto X racing to begin.
Every seat in the stadium and every spot in the grassy area was taken when David Beckham played his first game with the Galaxy against Chelsea three weeks ago. But at X Games there are still more people around the concourse and a ton more in the X Fest area.
I'm amazed at the amount of people that are here for the X Games. The Moto X races are going to be the highlight of the night. No doubt about it.
Jeff Ward, Mission Viejo native and current Newport Beach resident, came in second in the Moto X supermoto event. He won it last year.
Myself and Keenan Singleton of the Orange County Register went to where the trailers are to talk to him, except that became a journey unto itself.
The media center was no help, as there is a different media center for bikers. So we asked a person with ESPN, then security, then some random people.
We have no idea where we needed to go when we asked some more random people. They say, 'Mark Burkhart's trialer (the guy who beat Ward) is right there. Let's go ask them.' We didn't want to, but we had no choice. Well, as we asked one of Burkhart's team members, a kid (I would guess 10, maybe 8 years old) jumps in and says, "he's over there. He has the Taylor Lee design bike." The what?
I don't know what the kid was talking about, but he led us to the right place. Maybe, next time, I'll ask a kid how to get around the X Games instead of ESPN or Home Depot Center staffers. I swear, most of those guys are useless, yet that kid was awesome.
We talked to Ward and he was just as awesome as the kid. Even though he's 40-something (or maybe because he's 40-something), the guy was great to talk to and very honest. He took full blame for losing the lead on the next to last lap and finishing second.
The gold medal in the nightcap from Staples Center went to Ronnie Renner, the man from Westminster, Calif., who's heavy (and LOUD) KTM bike is a far cry from the light Hondas and Yamahas used by most other competitors in the step up.
Renner cleared the 34-foot bar, and Tommy Clowers, Brian Deegan and Matt Buyten all failed for the first time on that height.
The most impressive clear of the night very well might have been Buyten's work at 31 feet. He didn't even come close to clearing on the first attempt, and then had workers fix the dirt in front of the lip to make sure he could get proper traction. After that, he started his Honda but pulled back after a bad start. When all seemed to be going wrong for the guy, he came back with one heck of a run to move on to the next round, which had the bar at 32 feet.
I tell you, for all the complaining I do about ESPN, the over-the-head camera shots during the step up have been tremendous. Seeing Renner crank his KTM from side to side is pretty impressive. Though I'm not a fan of all sorts of crazy TV angles (i.e. SkyCam during football games), I think this one should be required on every attempt, at least on a replay.
So here were the final standings from the two finals at Staples tonight, thanks to EXPN:
Moto X Step Up
1. Ronnie Renner, 33 feet 2t. Tommy Clowers, 32 feet 2t. Brian Deegan, 32 feet 2t. Matt Buyten, 32 feet 5. Jeremy McGrath, 28 feet
But it didn't amount to all that much. After two stages of Moto X step up, only one rider is out, and it's not the big name in the game. Brian Deegan, the Staples Center crowd favorite and resident of Temecula, Calif., failed to clear the bar on his first try but managed to get over on the second attempt. Deegan was the only one of the five riders to have a problem on the 26-foot height. In the second run, at 28 feet, Deegan once again failed his first attempt. After course workers struggled to replace the bar, ESPN again went to a commercial break. Of course, within 15 seconds of the commercial's start, the guys got the bar back up and Deegan would have been good to go. Nevertheless, Deegan came back and easily cleared the bar on his second attempt. Still, he probably wasn't too happy about the four-minute wait.
Ronnie Renner, who went second, looked best on the first height. He takes his KTM real high and whips the back side around in a rather violent fashion.
Jeremy McGrath, of Encinitas, Calif., had plenty of height on his first attempt at 28 feet but couldn't get far enough forward to clear the bar. He hit the bottom of the bar on the way up on his next attempt.
And finally, a bit of trivium. The only competitor in this event tonight who isn't from California is Matt Buyten of Minden, Nevada. Buyten looked good at 26 feet and then upped the bar to 29 feet to end the second round of clearings.
This event, as Fastball noted, hasn't been the greatest in the past. Perhaps the object is tough to grasp. It's like limbo, reversed.
In case you're confused, here's a quick explanation on step up: It's double-elimination for each rider at each height. The bar starts somewhere between 26 and 29 feet above the lip of the dirt ramp and gets raised 6 inches after every round. They keep on going until only one rider clears a height no one else can.
The X games only allows 5 riders and offers only a gold medal in the event.
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).