| Event: Bicycle Stunt Series/B3 round 3 & X Trials #1 Date: May 18-20, 2001. Place: Lone Star Skate/Bike Park, Grand Prairie, Texas. | |
| FLAT | |
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Yee-haw ! Ride 'em cowboy! The third stop of the BS Series was held in the heart of Texas .Grand Prairie to be exact. The Flatland contest was held on a roller hockey rink, which made it similar to a rodeo because it was tough to hang on to your bike on the slick surface. However, there was some incredible riding going on. Leif Valin made the cut with some nice cross-foot around the bike stuff on the front wheel and a no-handed hang 5 to one-handed whiplashes. Takahiro Enoki was one of the many Japanese riders ripping in Texas. He rode brakeless and did all sorts of pinky squeak variations and direction changes along with a hiker whip to an around the bike move. Dan Rigby was going for some of the most difficult links of the contest. The slick slanted surface (say that 10 times really fast) gave him some trouble, but he still pulled his hang 5 to backpacker turbined backwards. Ryoji Yamamoto had some super original moves. He did a one-handed side squeak kickflip, tons of innovative 360 barflips and much more. Hiroya Morisake was yet another guy making the trek from Japan. He has a high energy riding style that is really fun to watch and his tricks are really hard. He did spinning hang 10 switches around the bike and a hitchhiker with a whopper ride out. Keep your eye on "Hiro;" he is the bomb ! Everyone loves to watch Alex Jumelin. His high-speed tech switches are incredible and the ladies love him because his "sag" shows his Calvin Klein underwear at all times. Alex turbined a halfhiker around the bike and did a tomahawk on the grip along with tons of fast switches. Alex got fifth place. York Uno rode flawless for fourth place and an X Games invite. He cruised no-handed hikers and hitchhiker whips to endless brakeless spinning switches. Stephan Cerra also rode flawless and also received an X Games invite. He did a no-footed tomahawk, a no-footed megaspin with his knee on the seat to decade and an upside-down pedaling megaspin. Cerra got a well-deserved third place. Another Dig-it rider, Nathan Penonzek, took second place. Nate had a flawless, flowing run full of things like a cross-footed hiker whip and a no-handed inside, cross-footed stick b on the pedal. First place went to the new golden boy of Flatland, Martti Kuoppa. Once again Martti was on fire and laid down a no touch run. He did his steamroller kickflip to crackpacker (just missing the cameraman). He also busted a cross-footed halfhiker to backpacker to kickflip to side yard to tomahawk on the frame to spinning hiker. The guys at Dig-it have to be stoked on their boys ! |
STUNTMEN FLAT 1.Martti Kuoppa 2.Nathan Penonzek 3.Stephan Cerra 4.York Uno 5.Alex Jumelin 6.Hiroya Morisaki 7.Takahiro Enoki 8.Dan Rigby 9.Ryoji Yamamoto 10.Leif Valin 11.Effraim Catlow 12.Art Thomason 13.Scott Powell 14.Matt Wilhelm 15.Akira Okamura 16.Jimmy Petitet 17.Andy Cooper 18.Akio Kotani 19.Aaron Behnke 20.Takashi Ito 21.Bryan Huffman 22.Terry Adams 23.Cory Stratychuk 24.Keith King 25.Sean Peters |
| VERT | |
| Leigh Ramsdell:
Man oh man, this was a crazy comp. Even though it was once again windy, Vert riding was at its finest. There were 30 guys in qualifying. It's so good to see so many people riding vert again. Hell I might even start riding Vert at contests again. Some of the guys who didn't qualify but still went big. Bob Kohl did trailwhips and supermans. Josh Harrington spun his bars out of peg grinds. Rick Thorne was doing tons of back-to-back variations. Mike Laird was who impressed me the most though. He did a tailwhip at like seven feet smooth and then on his final run the first trick he did was a six-foot flair. He was so psyched that he couldn't even finish the rest of his run because he just learned them. On to the finals. One big German, Stephan Geisler, was going big and he is big, hence the nickname. Riding a flamed out bike, John Parker soared like an eagle, but then fell like a rock on a double tailwhip attempt resulting with a busted up chin. But before he fell he did one of the highest tailwhips I've seen in a long time. Jim Burgess made his second pro finals appearance and went off. He must be riding a lot lately. He was doing high back-to-back variations and smooth 540s. Jay Miron does some high 540's into tailwhips on the other wall. He also does some kick ass alley-oop ice pick grinds and nose wheelies. Straight out of Colorado, Jay Eggleston smoothly lofted air high above the coping with stunts like rocket x-ups, no-handers and nice 540s. Even though Dave Mirra could play it safe and probably win the contest, he's been just going for it lately. Like this contest his first trick was going to be a flair about nine or ten feet out but he had to bail it. On his second run he did a no-footed can-can tailwhip and then a one-handed tailwhip so smooth. Damn kid. I have to say that DMC impresses me to no end these days. Dennis McCoy is riding super good. Big flairs, barspin 540's, high variations and a sense of humor that'll leave you on the floor in stitches. Mr. 900, Simon Tabron pulled a perfect 900. He also does the most cracked turndown 540's. Simon went for an ally-oop 900 even though his back wheel was giving him a bit of trouble. Kevin Robinson has been going off lately and this contest was no exception. He did a regular flair straight into a no-handed flair. Calm down son ! He's definitely pushing Vert riding. The man to beat this year is Jamie Bestwick. He's been going off like a bomb that went off. Variations so high and stretched, flairs anyway he pleases and alley ooped no-handed 540's carving so much of the ramp you'd think it was Thanksgiving. Well Jamie won this event. Like I've said before, it's great to see the level of Vert riding being pushed from contest to contest. I just can't image what'll happen if the wind decides it doesn't want to show up at the next comp. Cheers. |
STUNTMEN VERT 1.Jamie Bestwich 2.Kevin Robinson 3.Simon Tabron 4.Dennis McCoy 5.Dave Mirra 6.Jay Eggleston 7.Jay Miron 8.Jim Burgess 9.John Parker 10.Stephan Geisler 11.Eduardo Terreros 12.Rick Thorne 13.Josh Harrington 14.Mike Laird 15.Carlo Griggs 16.Ryan Nyquist 17.Scott Wirch 18.Bob Kohl 19.Zach Shaw 20.Tom Stober 21.Seiji Saito 22.Dave Brumlow 23.Shaun Eglington 24.Kevin Gutierrez 25.Achim Kujawski 26.Danny Parks 27.Mike Mancuso 28.Steve Nowak 29.Thad Miller 30.Steve Ornelas |
| PARK | |
| The park was built as a permanent skatepark for Grand Prairie. It's a big course too. There's a huge subbox, a bowled mini spine, multi-level quarter pipes and lots of rails. Because of a threat with rain there was a one run qualifying as opposed to the normal two run qualifiers. So these guys had to lay it on the line to make it in the finals. And I'm sure that it hurt a lot of people because you couldn't mess up at all. The level of riding was intense. So intense that Kevin Gutierrez decided to sprocket chunk the top of the signs. The signs broke and he dropped fifteen feet to the ground. Amazingly he wasn't hurt one bit. Also Dave Mirra tried to flair from a quarter pipe over a rail wedge twelve feet to another quarter pipe but messed up on the landing. He tried it again and the same result. I can't believe how much this guy is going for it. In the finals we saw Mike Escamilla hit some original lines and pull a perfect 540-sprocket pivot on the sub. It was the trick of the contest in my opinion. Cory Martinez did a downside tailwhip from the quarter on top of the decks down to the hill ramp. Once again Brian Wizmerski made it into the finals. He did a turndown to manual to turndown out on the subbox. Brian also did a turndown to icepick down a rail. That kid is no joke. Allan Cooke rode around the park like he was being chased by a rabid dog or something. He likes to haul ass and I don't mean donkeys. He did some good gaps down the hill ramp and also wall rode around the curved part of the subramp. A guy to keep an eye on this year is Rob Darden. Why? Well double tailwhips over the box, tailwhip to tailtaps, manual to sprocket to 270 in would be good starters. The finals are a common place for Colin MacKay these days. He does so many tricks in his lines. Barspin drop in off the sub to the box landing, big transfers, and barspin to manual to feeble on the sub are just a few of the many things he did. Colin Winklemann was the oldest guy in the finals. At a whopping 25 years old I don't see how he flipped from the six foot quarter over the gap to the eight foot quarter deck, 540 tailtapped the sub, and almost pulled a flair to tailtap. Not with out a cane at least. Tom Haugen kicks some serious butt. Tailwhip 360 over the spine, tailwhip tailtaps and non-stop riding made Tom get third. Bruce Crisman is a ripper. He flows around the park like a river. One-handed fufanu on the sub, wall tap the shady signage and barspin manuals are a few tricks in this second place run. In first place, we have Ryan Nyquist. He barspun flipped the spine, one footed x-uped from quarter to quarter, and basically showed that park who was boss. |
STUNTMEN PARK 1.Ryan Nyquist 2.Bruce Crisman 3.Tom Haugen 4.Colin Winklemann 5.Colin Mackay 6.Rob Darden 7.Allan Cooke 8.Brian Wizmerski 9.Cory Martinez 10.Mike Escamilla 11.Marcus Wilke 12.Mike Ardelean 13.Van Homan 14.Steve McCann 15.Dennis McCoy 16.Mike Laird 17.Jay Miron 18.Josh Harrington 19.Rick Thorne 20.Chris Shelkopf 21.Adam Banton 22.Scott Wirch 23.Ruben Alcantara 24.Dave Mirra 25.John Heaton 26.Kevin Gutierrez 27.Ryan Jordan 28.Atom Baker |