Ouch is an understatement- Dave Mirra’s practice run ended with a trip to the hospital and a lacerated liver. Nick Laham © Getty Images

The Broken Neck Club

The riders in X Games 12 are so evenly matched that it’s anybody’s game, which means that this BMX Vert contest could be the best action sports event of the year: It’s hard to pick a favorite in a contest featuring Jamie Bestwick, Chad Kagy, Simon Tabron, Koji Kraft, Kevin Robinson, Tom Haugen, and Dennis McCoy.
 
Even before the BMX Vert contest begins at X Games 12, there is already dramatic news in the final standings: John Parker is out due to hand injuries and a concussion last week; Tom Haugen is in as an alternate. Dave Mirra’s practice run over on the X Games park contest won him a trip to the hospital and a lacerated liver, and now his spot is up for grabs as well, making this the first X Games he’s EVER missed.
 
“The injuries that we’ve had this year are a combination of the progression and intensity that this sport has now gotten to,” says Kagy. “The level we’re now going at is so ridiculous that when you go down, you go down hard.”
 
On a skateboard, vert riders generally slide to safety on their knee pads. Not so in BMX, where the captain almost always goes down with the ship. 
 
Talk to any of the guys still in for the Finals and they’ll tell you the same thing: to win this event, you’ve got to stay on your bike. In practice sessions, everybody seems to be taking it easy, and many riders say they are saving themselves for the big show.
 
“With the LG Tour, the Dew Tour, and the X Games there are now so many big events in the summer, so at the same time the progression is really being pushed it also really starts to wear everybody down,” says Kagy. “Once you wear down to a certain point, you start to fall apart. Nobody can afford to take too many risks with big tricks in practice. You’d just miss out on the big show altogether.”
 
The riders are also playing it safe – for now – with the huge new ramp. There is plenty of room to move around on it, for sure, but so far only Kevin Robinson has tried anything over the massive hip channel, and most riders have been steering clear of the ramp’s skatepark-inspired features.
 
As in any BMX event, griping about the ramp conditions is a favorite pastime here at the X Games: riders say they can feel the ribs in the support structure through the surface of the ramp, and say placement of certain features is less than optimal for bikes.
 
Chatting on deck with ramp designer Tim Payne of Team Payne Skateparks this morniong, Dennis McCoy took the opportunity to compare the ramp unfavorably to Tony Hawk’s Boom-Boom Huck Jam ramp: “It’s like the princess and the pear. Things you wouldn’t have notices a few years ago, we’re starting to be able to feel now, because now there’s a perfect ramp out there, and you can’t go back.”
 
Still, the ramp has tremendous possibility and infinite lines. Tomorrow, we’ll see some real BMX action – and probably some ship captains going down hard.
 

– Colin Bane