| Event: AFA Masters 1988 round 7. Date: 1988. Place: Carson, California. Organisation: AFA. BMX Plus! 02/1989: The AFA rider turnout was rather slim for a California contest. Only 110 riders signed up for flatland, a mere 30 for ramps. McGoo thinks it was due to the AFA changing the contest date only a few weeks before the event. Could be. Or it could have been because the AFA changed the date again (after publishing the second date in their ads) to a week later than the originally scheduled date. Or it might have been because the location was changed from Riverside, California, to Carson, California (we're serious!). Anyway, after all the date- and location-switching came to an end, the veteran Velodrome contest site fell host to this round of the Masters Series. Dennis McCoy, the guy who's been dominating the series for pretty much the entire year, made it to the contest in spite of the scheduling hassles. So did most of the other pros. However, Ron Wilkerson, Brian Blyther, Rick Moliterno, Rick Allison and Dave Nourie were all pro no-shows. Mike Dominguez appeared on Sunday but didn't ride. There were rumors flyin' that a mound of people are going to join the professional ranks for the '89 series, including Matt Hoffman, Joel Alamo, Gerry Smith, Darren Pelio and Mark Roldan. Very interesting, considering that Rick Moliterno was the only dude who turned pro for '88. Anyhow, the main atmosphere at the contest was beyond casual on both days. | |
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BMX Plus! 02/1989: Saturday's flatland action proved to be quite the experience. Ryuji Hora did front-wheel spins in the neighborhood of 1000 degrees amongst a ton of other psycho moves. Gerry Smith and Dennis McCoy did backward whiplashes into (puke!) forward rope-a-ronis. Danny Meng did death trucks and stepped into stick-b's without ever touching his rear tire. Ruben Castillo did clockwise double whiplashes into no-handed spastic freak squeaks. Jeff Cotter no-handedly jumped into barrides from his pedals. Perry "Pure Style" Mervar did some peg-dragging forward side glides. Woody Itson did a switch-handed hang nothing. Eddie Fiola came back from contest retirement, resurrected an assortment of mostly older tricks and did them with so much flair that he beat almost everybody else in the Pro Flatland class. But Dennis McCoy did double backwards whiplashes into funky chickens, and nobody could beat that. Such were the highlights ... Pro flatland results: 1.Dennis McCoy 2.Eddie Fiola 3.Martin Aparijo 4.Woody Itson 5.Dennis Langlais 6.Chris Lashua 19 and over expert flatland: 1.Ron Camero 2.Mark Roldan 3.Ron McCoy 4.Pete Kearney 5.Dino DeLuca 18 expert flatland: 1.Perry Mervar 2.Jesse Puente 3.Darren Pelio 4.Brett Hernandez 5.Gary Pollack 17 expert flatland: 1.Jeff Cotter 2.Gerry Smith 3.Matt Ward 4.Steve Goates 5.Matt Wilson 16 expert flatland: 1.Ryuji Hora 2.Danny Meng 3.Ruben Castillo 4.Ron Bergenholtz 5.Park Carter 15 expert flatland: 1.Danny Lupold 2.Danny Sirkin 3.Steve Gambia 4.Andy Mulcahy 5.Frankie Arnwine 14 expert flatland: 1.Bill Gawrych 2.Josh Williams 3.Armando Adams 4.Randy Latshow 5.Steve Hardy 13 and under expert flatland: 1.Carly Garcia 2.Eric Evans 3.Reza Ghod stindt 4.Kenny Cornett |
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| VERT | |
| BMX Plus! 02/1989: Ramp Sunday was short but sweet. Nothing beats a day of
kicking back and
watching your favorite riders blasting air... nothing at all. Matt
Hoffman blended bar-hop airs into his usual array of sickness. Joel
Alamo would die to beat Hoffman, and almost did after a bar-hop attempt
resulted in a sour-grapes body skid across the arena. He got up, though,
and managed to pull that bar-hop air successfully along with a radical
nothing. Leo Chin pulled a skyin' 540 that he's probably still smiling
about. Gary Pollak hung and tweaked his rear wheel on his third air, but
still blasted some wild no-handers. Dave Voelker spun three high 540s
altogether, pulling only one, but neither the crowd nor Dave seemed to
mind. Josh White did an insane fakie footplant over the channel. Yes,
over it. Todd Anderson put together a flawless run of high and radical
variations, capped off with an all-out one-footed 540 . . . a high one
at that. And Joe Johnson wowed the crowd with a tailwhip air over the
channel. If Joe hadn't made the mistake of twice trying to do a
double-tailwhip air—and twice crashing—he probably would have won the
contest. Pro ramps results: 1.Todd Anderson 2.Josh White 3.Dennis McCoy 4.Joe Johnson 5.Dennis Langlais 19 and over expert ramps: 1.Dino DeLuca 2.Dave Voelker 3.Kevin Schaub 4.Danny Schow 5.Doug Randazzo 18 expert ramps: 1.Gary Pollack 2.Ken Powers 3.Chris Potts 4.Dan Hubbard 5.Bob Leftwich 17 expert ramps: 1.Mike Kinaich 2.Paul Morris 3.Kurt Kunz 4.Leo Chen 5.Tommy Phillips 16 expert ramps: 1.Matt Hoffman 2.Joel Alamo 15 expert ramps: 1.Ryan Dunman 2.Beau Cobb 3.Greg Soler 14 expert ramps: 1.Eric Evans 2.Bill Gawrych 13 and under expert ramps: (Eric Evans was moved up to 14x) |
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| BMX Plus! 02/1989: Yup, the contest was full of the creativeness you'd expect. It was a cool time, no doubt. So cool, in fact, that Karl Rothe didn't even think about his car that he crashed the life out of Friday night before the weekend festivities began. It just goes to show you that every-one needs an outlet. And for the rare breed of humans we are, that outlet is freestyle (not crashing cars, silly brains). And don't forget it. | |