Whips & Big Jumps

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Words and Photos by Patrick Branch


This past weekend in San Diego, the X-Fusion Sideflight Championships (an invite only competition to throw the best whips over all the jumps, with $1000 to the winner) went down, well kind of... The event took place at Golden Acorn Motocross track, where Griz, Ben White (who runs the track), JD Swanguen, Cody Warren, and Kyle Strait spent the past 2 weeks building the three jumps. The first jump was a 45' double that lead into a 40' step up and finished with a 30-40' hip.

When I arrived Friday with JD Swanguen, everyone was waiting for the wind to die down. After an X-Fusion lunch of barbecued chicken and hot dogs, the wind had calmed and riders began hitting the jumps for the first time. It didn't take long for riders to start going sideways. Everyone was going huge, each bringing their own style to the show. Brendan Fairclough was getting really steezy, doing moto style whips, pointing halfway through. Andrew Taylor must have thought it was a slopestlye event because he started doing supermans. As soon as the sun went down, behind the hills, it got really cold, but they rode until it was dark.
Saturday morning, people that camped were recovering from the night before, while others that stayed in hotels or lived nearby were arriving. The day before was cold, but Saturday was especially cold, not to mention, windy... Graeme Pitts was ready to go almost as soon as he got there, and was the first to hit them (like the day before). It got windy, like it did Friday, so everyone waited, then ate lunch, then waited more, while photographers and film makers were setting up. A few riders tried the jumps, but they didn't go too smoothly for anyone. Cody Warren came up a bit short and broke his crankset. The wind seemed to be getting stronger than the day before. Waiting for it to die down continued, but it didn't die down... Everyone was unsure if it would be postponed and/or canceled. Soon, most of the media had left, with some heading to another spot to shoot riders. The rest of the riders, spectators and remaining media people, that were left waiting, unsure of what would happen, soon realized it wasn't happening.



At the after event party Saturday night, at a sports bar, winners were chosen based on Friday's practice. Sean McClendon took first, Tyler McCaul -second, Brendan Fairclough -third, Ryan Howard -fourth, and Thomas Vanderham -fifth. It was unfortunate an actual competition didn't take place... but more whip contests put on by X-Fusion are in the works.

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PBmedia - I take pictures.