Place: Seal Beach, California.
In eighth place was Leif Valin. Leif did a lot of his upside-down tricks, rolling endlessly on his pedals, taking full advantage of his transitioned surroundings.
Leo Dumlao finally rode in a contest as well as he does at the beach (maybe because the contest was at the beach). Besides earning seventh place, Leo busted out pinky squeaks to barflip, to squeak to barflip back.
Sixth place went to Martti Kuoppa from Finland. Martti is a certified bad ass, doing wacky stuff like cross-footed hitchhikers to turbined karl kruizers to regular hitchhikers, firehydrants to flip to cross-footed hitchhikers, and all sorts of Finlandian goodness.
Jason Brown found himself in fifth place after going bonkers-crazy during front wheel links for his entire run.
Rookie-pro Dan Rigby came all the way down from Canada to kick ass, and a fourth place ass kicking was what all these wussie Americans received. During his ass kicking, Dan unleashed with a decade to pedal wheelie to gerator on the pedal to decade out. He also did a rather lengthy link with a seat divit thrown in.
In third place was Trevor Meyer. Yep, you heard right, third place. Trevor connected every karl kruizer variation into one combo.... Inside out, outside circles, on the pedals... The kid can do it all. He also did inside circle gerators to inside circle stick bitch back out to reverse stick bitch. Man... Touches plagued his run a bit, and with Day and Andrew having amazing runs, third was all he could do.
Second place went to Day Smith, who had some of the best runs l've seen him turn in. Day glided cross-footed stick bitches, foward rope-a-ronis to upside down decades, hang 5s to wheelchairs to hitchhikers... Day was on. Word up, yo...
First place once again went to Andrew Faris. Andrew is an amazing human... Firehydrant to double-footed turbined deathtrucks, barflips to hitchikers to barflips... Andrew is the man.
STUNTMEN FLAT RESULTS: 1-Andrew Farris 2-Day Smith 3-Trevor Meyer 4-Dan Rigby 5-Jason Brown 6-Martti Kuoppa 7-Leo Dumlao 8-Leif Valin
Jesse Puente, multiple one handed whiplashes.
Roni, Ride BMX US december 1997: Eighth place went to the undisputed ruler of the tailwhip foot-plant, Rick Thorne opened up his big bag of tricks and came out with 540s, flip fakies, rocket X-ups and a whole slew of sleeveless bad assedness.
Seventh place went to Jimmy Walker, who does some of the raddest vert toboggans ever. Jimmy went pretty high, kicked some swinglegs, and crashed on a double barspin.
Jason Davies was the man in sixth. Jason did opposite lookbacks, 540s, big variations...
Fifth place went to Leigh Ramsdell. Leigh did No-handed 540s, insanely high flip fakies and a tailtap to double peg stall. Leigh improves almost daily, and should prove to be a huge threat to the pro class.
Dave Osato was the man in fourth. Dave rode really, technically well. Big tailwhip to seatgrab superman, high airs, crazy lip tricks and all sorts af stuff...
Third place went to John Parker, who had really good contest runs for once. Tons of back to back variations, like no-handed 540s, X-up tailwhips, swinglegs...
Dave Mirra was the man who ended up in second. Flairs, flip fakies, 540s, tailwhips... The usual Dave goodness.
First place went to a quite stoked DMC. Dennis was on. Huge flairs, barspin to barspin back, 540s, crazy lip tricks...
STUNTMEN VERT RESULTS: 1-Dennis McCoy 2-Dave Mirra 3-John Parker 4-Dave Osato 5-Leigh Ramsdell 6-Jason Davies 7-Jimmy Walker 8-Rick Thorne
Eighth place went to John Parker, who proved he's more than just a vert rider. John flowed with big tailwhips, 720s, barspins...
Seventh went to his GT teammate, Rob Nolli. Rob tailwhipped, flipped, nosepicked and flowed all over the course.
Sixth place went to rookie-pro, Chad Kagy. Chad comes from that same part of NorCal than Ryan Nyquist comes from, and he's just about as bad ass as Ryan himself. Huge wallrides to barspin out, a flip on the two-foot box and a flyout onto the huge vert wall to bornb drop back in. Chad had probably the most arnazing debut I've ever seen, so expect him to be ruling next year.
Fifth went to Chad's buddy, Ryan Nyquist. Ryan can spin indefinitely (whether it's his bars or himself on his bike). He managed to do this all over the course during his runs, but he lacked his usual flair, so fifth was all he could muster.
Fourth place went to Ron Kimler. Ron had te raddest (sucessfull) gap of the contest. Ron would bunnyhop off the top of the vert wall, over the rail on the roll-in (and the roll-in itself) and down into the six foot quarter. Pure street. Ron flowed with speed and X-ups all over tbe course, combined witb tech tricks like no-footed nosepicks and stuff.
Mike Escamilla was the man in third. Rooftop took usual Rooftop lines, and flowed all over the course. The raddest things Mike did a huge double peg grind on the giant vert wall, and my personal favorite, a caveman to double peg down the big roll-in rail.
Second place went to DMC. Dennis flipped, truckdrove, 540 nosewheelied, flaired and in general, smacked the course around like a red-headed step-child.
First place was all Dave Mirra. I'm tired of telling you all the stuff Dave does, so I'll tell you what Dave didn't do... Dave didn't do a Gumby. Dave didn't do any antriders. Dave didn't do a Scura Tuck. So there yau go, pro street.
STUNTMEN STREET RESULTS: 1-Dave Mirra 2-Dennis McCoy 3-Mike rooftop Escamilla 4-Ron Kimler 5-Ryan Nyquist 6-Chad Kagy 7-Rob Noli 8-John Parker 9-Troy McMurray
Chad Kagy, www.ridebmx.com, may 2008: My first full-page, color shot was from the BS finals in Seal Beach back in 1997. I was doing a superman seatgrab barspin with my orange "01" bike and a rebel flag helmet looking loose over the box. It's funny how your first real photo in a magazine can set the stage for how people see you. Fuzzy once told me he was kind of scared to meet me because I looked like I was mean in that photo, haha. That, and everyone thought I was a redneck but I was making a joke about the Dukes Of Hazzard...oh well. Some people got the joke and some people hated me for it. I had fun either way you look at it.
Cameron Birdwell
John Bethers, seat and rear peg grab.
Chad Kagy.