Michael Clark’s smooth double back flip on his first run in Friday night’s BMX dirt competition set the tone for what would become an airborne dogfight, ending with a trick never before done in BMX competition.
Battle-scarred Californian Ryan Nyquist won the comp with a 96.25-point 720 bar spin – two full rotations with a no-hands spin of the handlebars. It was the first time the trick had been performed in BMX competition.
Anthony Napolitan, a 20-year-old newcomer who won the Dew Tour’s first BMX dirt comp in Louisville, Ky., affirmed his nascent ride to the top with a no-handed front flip and double tail-whip 360 on the final jump of the three-jump course, earning second place.
California rider Luke Parslow finished third with a 93.25-point run capped with a bar-spinning backflip.
“Best run of my life is only good for fifth,” said Pennsylvania’s Chris Doyle, revealing the escalating intensity of the final comps in the Dew Tour.
The bigger the better
The big boys of BMX battled late Saturday on the Pepsi Center’s gargantuan halfpipe, flying twice as high as the skateboarders and spinning just as much. BMX vert caters to the largest athletes, with the Dew Tour’s oldest and burliest athletes translating girth into momentum, which quickly becomes air. Big air. Some flew 13-plus feet above the deck of the 18-foot ramp. The senior members of the vertical BMX tribe – 34-year-old Kevin Robinson, 27-year-old Chad Kagy and 35-year-old Jamie Bestwick – waged a dazzling throwdown with their 45-second runs.
Bestwick ended up winning but had to best Kagy’s theatrical 540 tailwhip – a 540-degree spin while spinning the bike one rotation – that stunned the crowd.
