| Event: B3 round 4 finals Date: june 15-18, 2000 Place: Nashville, TeNnessee Brian Tunney, www.expn.com, july 2000: The BS Series / X Trials made its final stop in Nashville, and arrived in the Volunteer State amid rain, chaos and almost no athletes on hand to compete. It was, in a nutshell, a nightmare weekend for travel and even worse plans to be outside all day. Let me explain. Airline travel was precarious due to the extreme lack of visibility and rain that has plagued much of the country during the second weekend of June. Flights were canceled, riders got stranded and some were simply told that they could fly no further than Memphis, thus having to make a 4-hour journey by rental car to Nashville. (Ouch, I don't think Northwest Airlines made any new friends last weekend.) Those that actually made it into town got to compete under the pressure of rain delays, rainouts and harsh winds. It was not a pretty sight, but year-end titles and X Games invites were at stake. Here's how everything developed ? |
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| FLAT | |
| Brian Tunney, www.expn.com, july 2000: The year-end title came down to a battle between Nathan Penonzek and Trevor Meyer, although the winner of the weekend was a very happy Canadian named Dan Rigby. Dan's win was long overdue, and rough considering that his run was postponed by rain for 1 and 1&Mac218;2 hours during the finals. 8 of the 10 riders in the finals finished before a rainstorm. Dan and 2nd place finisher Martti Kuoppa, however, were forced to wait until the storms subsided to make their runs. I guess it was a good wait for both of them, considering their top placings. The year-end title decision went to Trevor, for the 7th straight year, and Nathan finished a very close 2nd. Martti Kuoppa gets into a death truck standing on both pedals, grabs the front pegs with his hands, and then start cranking in super tight circles. He even threw in some no handers. |
STUNTMEN FLAT RESULTS 1-Rigby Dan 2-Kuoppa Martti 3-Wilhelm Matt 4-Penonzek Nathan 5-Meyer Trevor 6-Stratychuck Cory 7-Tunney Brian 8-Ito Takashi 9-Powell Scott 10-Mulder Steve 11-Uno York 12-Faris Andrew 13-Thomason Art 14-Behnke Aaron 15-Smith Day 16-Weed Gabe 17-Cooper Andy 18-Cerra Stephen 19-Okamura Akira 20-Rybak Brian 21-Gipson Matt 22-Valin Leif 23-King Keith 24-Huffman Bryan |
| VERT | |
| Brian Tunney, www.expn.com, july 2000: Wind and rain made this class almost non-existent, on Sunday the skies cleared just long enough to run the pros, though it was still a windy mess. Condor Mat Hoffman took the win with a no-handed one-footed 540 at 7 feet, a rocket double barspin and too many other high and mighty variations to list. It was another well-deserved win for Mat, who also took home the year-end belt. 2nd place went to the Tough as Nails winner Dennis McCoy. Dennis let loose with a lookback 540 and a 900 air. He landed a tad hard straddling the bike on the 900, got back up and did a perfect flair, then walked off the ramp clutching his unmentionables. It may have hurt but it was incredible to witness. Not bad for a guy that separated his shoulder less than a month ago. 3rd place went to John Parker. John rode awesome all year long, and never held anything back. Here he went for the dreaded double tailwhip twice, but barely missed pulling it. He did pull the Parker signature framestand one-hander one-footer air at 10 feet, and did it all with a huge smile and the same shoes as the 4th place finisher Kevin Robinson (high top Reeboks). Kevin pulled a switch-hand 540 at height, but couldn't quite get his flairs to come back down in the wind. Mat Hoffman ended his run with a bike-whip attempt, wich is basically a tailwhip where the bars go around with the bike. |
STUNTMEN VERT RESULTS 1-Hoffman Mat 2-McCoy Dennis 3-Parker John 4-Robinson Kevin 5-Eggleston Jay 6-Walker Jimmy 7-Osato Dave 8-Kraft Koji 9-Davies Jason 10-Thorne Rick 11-Nolli Rob 12-Burgess Jim 13-Saito Seiji 14-Brumlow Dave 15-Fanberg Jeremy 16-Miller Pat 17-Eglington Shaun 18-Parks Danny 19-Cousert John 20-Mancuso Mike 21-Laird Mike 22-Nowak Steve |
| STREET | |
| Brian Tunney, www.expn.com, july 2000: Again, it was thought that this class might not even happen. Rain welcomed us on Sunday morning and cleared up in time for qualifiers to get underway. There would not be time for finals, so all riders were given two runs each and qualifying was made into finals. It was all or nothing for the riders and this produced some interesting riding. 1st place went to Haro's Ryan Nyquist. Ryan, back from a thumb injury, made his presence known with huge runs including a 720 straight into a barspin 540 and a big transfer to manual line that no one else took on the course. 2nd place went to year-end contender Rob Nolli, who again went huge with barspin and tailwhip gaps, and interesting lines including fastplants from the box, over the grind ledge and into the mini. Rob ended up missing the year-end glory to Schwinn rider Dave Osato, who had an off day but still collected enough points to take home the belt. Other noteworthy lines included: Van Homan's 180 to backwards grind over the jump box and down, Bruce Crisman's bunnyhop one-hand x-up gap, and Mike Ardelean's crankflip to pedal grind. Although the pressure was on for everyone to ride fast and evade the rain, it was still a great contest. And I'm amazed that the rain actually held out long enough for the riding to finish. Ruben Alcantara landed a wallride to tailwhip. |
STUNTMEN STREET RESULTS 1-Nyquist Ryan 2-Nolli Rob 3-Alcantara Ruben 4-Crisman Bruce 5-Homan Van 6-McCoy Dennis 7-Haugen Tom 8-Mackay Colin 9-Ardelean Mike 10-Winkleman Colin 11-Kagy Chad 12-Fanberg Jeremy 13-Kimbrough Seth 14-Daly Mike 15-Heaton John 16-Osato Dave 17-Aloise Adam 18-Levan Jimmy 19-Harrington Jeff 20-Shellkopf Chris 21-Laird Mike 22-Santalucia Alvaro 23-McMurray Troy 24-Nowak Steve 25-Byrnes Garrett 26-Birdwell Cameron |