Nyquist nails it in the BMX Dirt Finals, scoring the first place victory. Jared Souney © 2006 Lat34

Nyquist Nails First Place In Dirt Finals

Check out the BMX Dirt Finals Gallery

BMX dirt finals rumbled to a power packed finish Friday at the Dew Tour in Denver. Thursday’s prelim results had Corey Bohan, Luke Parslow, Ryan Nyquist, T J Ellis, Chris Doyle and Ryan Guettler in the top six positions coming into the finals. And they showed up ready for battle.

We had some big spills and some missed tricks at the start, but things picked up quickly after that. The final standings had Ryan Nyquist in first after nailing two barspin 720s - the second and third ever in competition for him. Anthony Napolitan came in a close second with a performance that many thought should have put him in first. But, sometimes that’s the way the chips fall. And Luke Parslow whose first run was good enough to secure the third place position. Finally, in fourth, fifth and sixth we had Dave Dillewaard, Chris Doyle and Ryan Guettler.

VIDEO   Check out this EXCLUSIVE clip of Ryan Nyquist pulling a 720 barspin in his winning BMX Dirt run at the Right Guard Open. PLAY> PHOTO GALLERY Check out this photo gallery from the BMX Dirt featuring shots of Ryan Nyquist, Anthony Napolitan (left), Luke Parslow and more. START >

Some of the other big runs we saw were Luke Parslow’s first run where he linked a backflip tailwhip, front flip, and flip to barspin to x-up. Anthony Napolitan’s second run killed with a front flip, a double tailwhip, and a double tailwhip 360. Allan Cooke rocked an unbelievable superman seat grab backflip that got the crowd going. And Mike Clark floated a smooth no hand front flip followed by a double backflip attempt that he landed with a foot down.

But, one of the big stories of the day revolves around the man who we will now call Tenacious T J. On his first run Ellis launched the biggest front flip we’ve seen at the Dew Tour so far, but overextended it just enough to catapult him into a serious face plant that knocked him out cold for several minutes. The crowd went eerily silent. That is until he miraculously woke up and walked away pumping his first in the air. He then went on to complete his second run. There was just no stopping him.

- Steve Lemig