X Games – Speed & Style

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Mon, Aug 2 2010 12:18 am | Comments

Speed and Style marked the final event for X Games 16, book-ending yet another fun-filled weekend of extreme sporting events for the mainstream masses. What started off as a somewhat unexciting set of single-rider qualifying heats, turned into pretty entertaining head-to-head action in the finals. After Ronnie Renner, Myles Richmond, and Jeff Kargola were eliminated in qualifying, the top eight guys paired up, bracket-style, for some one on one. In the quarterfinals, Adams took out Buyten; Twitch took out the Metal Mulisha General, Brian Deegan; Faisst advanced over Arenacrosser Kevin Johnson; Pastrana handled the Godfather, Mike Metzger.

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In the semis, Twitch and Nate Adams were putting on a good show, but Twitch got loose in the whoops and wadded up. Nate took the win, and Twitch was forced to the bronze medal race with Ronnie Faisst. In the bronze race, Twitch, put the bike down again, this time on the carpet turn. Faisst seemed to have it wrapped up, but he stalled coming out of the inside turn before the whoops. Twitch managed to catch up and pass him before he could get his Honda restarted. Twitch took the clumsy win and proceeded to ghostride the whip in the middle of Staples center.

The gold medal match came down to Nate and Pastrana in almost poetic fashion; the FMXer turned Supercross hopeful and the Supercross champ turned FMX icon. Nate’s style wasn’t enough to overtake Pastrana. TP199 handled the course 2001 East Coast Championship style.
“I knew Nate had bigger tricks. He was doing the 360s and lazyboy flips and I said ‘I’m just going to focus on the speed. I’m going to go as fast as I can,” said Pastrana.

RESULTS                        Hometown         Speed Score     Style Score      Total
1. Travis Pastrana             Annapolis, Md.         1:40.895             87.33                    3.00
2. Nate Adams                  Glendale Ariz.            1:46.008             89.00                  5.00
3. Jeremy Stenberg         Winchester, Calif.      1:45.777              87.00                   6.00
4. Ronnie Faisst               Murrieta, Calif.           1:46.380            82.66                   9.00
5. Kevin Johnson             Albuquerque, N.M.    1:42.019            79.66                    9.00
6. Brian Deegan               Bellevue, Neb.             1:47.625            81.66                    13.00
7. Matt Buyten                 Minden, Nev.               1:51.070            82.33                   16.00
8. Mike Metzger              Menifee, Calif.              1:50.123            79.33                   17.00