The Xs and Ohs! of the X Games
By JORDAN IKEDA
RAFU CONTRIBUTOR
Sunday, Aug. 12, 2007

MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo
HIGH TIMES: A contestant in the Moto X Step Up clears the bar at more than 34 feet at Staples Center.

MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo
Wheels left the terra firma at the Rally Car final at Home Depot Center.

A couple of weeks ago, I was informed that there would be a Japanese freestyle motocross participant in this year’s X Games. My gut reaction was instantaneous rejection.

“X Games? You mean the skateboard Olympics? You mean suburban recreational sports?”

Outside of playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater III on the PS2, I hadn’t a clue as to the first thing about X Games.

Basketball is my passion followed somewhat closely by baseball. I play fantasy football. I know the triple digit temperature is going to be an issue in Tulsa this weekend. Hockey and soccer are fun to watch live and arena football and mixed martial arts have been growing on me recently.

But X Games? I wanted to pass.

Instead, a voice inside my head reminded me that sports are my passion and that excluding one based on ignorance is, in all honestly, quite the sports bigot of me. So I mustered up the courage to explore something new.

I’ve come away from the experience with mixed emotions; the Xs and Os, if you will. Being a part of the media has never been a hat I’ve worn well, and this particular event did little to negate my lack of style. X number one came at the very onset of the experience. The event took place at two different venues–Staples Center and the Home Depot Center.

Instead of jogging on over to Staples (well, I’d drive but you get the picture) I had to jump on the 110 and drive some 15 plus miles to Carson to get my media credentials only to find out that all the events had been completed at the Home Depot Center for that day, but a bunch of events were taking place back at Staples.

I took some time to soak in my surroundings. The atmosphere is different than the more “normal” sporting events I’ve attended. I was fortunate enough that my uncle decided to let his punk thirteen-year-old nephew come along with him to Atlanta for the Olympics in 96, and that’s what the venue reminded me of, only on a much smaller scale.

Everything is outdoors, open. The entrance to the event is like a fairground with vendors, games, and even a stage with live music. People are interacting with one another in ways other than trying to get to one’s seat (of course X games has that too), or to get to one’s beer (there’s A LOT of that), or in the process of using the bathroom (Portapotties made this interaction limited).

There were four main arenas: the skateboard halfpipe, the motocross arena, the skate park, and the rally car track that was set up in the parking lot. Choose your own adventure.

I should know what everything looked like too, because nobody in uniform, none of the workers, none of the security, seemed to know how to correctly point me in the direction of the media credentials office. I walked around the entire venue, twice being sent to the wrong place. X two and X three for those keeping score.

When I finally acquired the press pass, it was accompanied by a wireless mouse...oh?

I fought little traffic back to Staples, paid seven bucks for parking, got there around three, in anticipation for an event that was listed on the website and in the media guide to start at 4. I sat down in the section labeled “credentialed only” and immediately began thinking how great the seats I had were. They were right in the middle of all the action.

Staples Center, from how it was set up, made a person sit back in wonder and breathe “Oh…” Up in the nose bleed seats, in the corner with West and Magic and Baylor and Kareem, the crazy X Games people set up a ramp, which I’m sure you’ve at least heard about, thanks to Jake Brown’s 40-foot fall (which he walked away from). It swoops down to the main center arena, with a ramp that has a 50-foot gap and one that has a 70-foot gap, that flows into a 25-foot quarter-pipe. This is a big contraption. I sat right in the middle, at ground level, able to clearly see the impossible insanity of what these guys were attempting to do.

They went down this thing on bikes and skateboards, often reaching speeds of 40-plus miles per hour and attempted (mostly successfully) to land flips and spins and twists and turns while flying through the air.

But the event was–with no reason given–pushed back to 5 o’clock, then
5:45. See, this is an example of my weekend at X Games. Schedules and times and locations meant nothing because things just started when and where they started. Organization was sorely lacking. X four.

Once the event started, I was told to leave and was forced to stand with all of the photogs in a section further away from the action. I waited almost three hours in prime seats only to watch the action from far away, standing to boot. X five.

Angered, upset, disappointed, once the bikers started coming down the ramp, all Xs were forgotten, replaced by a long stream of “Oh snap!” “Oh my god!” “Oh man!” “Oh lord…” “Did you see that?” “Oh… That’s crazy!”
Crazy doesn’t begin to describe.

Trust me, television doesn’t do any justice to the feats that these guys are pulling off. Only if you’ve seen what they do in person, can television even attempt to quantify the insanity and skill level and athleticism of X games athletes.

The third day of X Games was back at the Home Depot Center where I was directed to park, in a dirt field, on the other side of the Dominguez Hills campus, a short ¾ mile walk to the venue. Parking prices had vaulted from five dollars, to 20 overnight. Xs six and seven.

I came to watch Takayuki Higashino, a promising freestyle motocross rider who came from Japan just to participate. He wasn’t listed on the website or in the original program and must have been a late entry because we didn’t find out about him until he had already been eliminated. At the X Games, the process of gathering information was arduous at best and downright mind-numbingly horrid at worst.

Back at the Home Depot Center, I was sent to, literally, six different people before I was pointed in the correct direction of the press box. Once there, no one had any answers for my questions concerning specific riders and or start times. Xs eight and nine.

I finally settled in, read that Taka had finished in last place and prepped myself for the semi-final round of the freestyle motocross. Once again, after all of the excess and often unnecessary energy spent in trying to just watch the games, once it started, I couldn’t help but be amazed.

The event features several riders on dirt bikes going off of dirt ramps and attempting tricks like back flips, twists and turns and spins. The eventual winner did this one trick where he came off the jump, into a flip, then let go of the bike, floated in the air behind his bike before getting back onto it before he landed. Only three words to describe it. “OH…my…word…”

So I’m smarter now. I’ve been to and seen X Games. I’ve expanded my world. And yet, I still have mixed feelings. Part of me wants to tell you, wait a bit, wait till the organizers of the event get organized.

The other part of me demands that you go out, experience something different, learn about other people and the crazy stuff they do. Be amazed by the spectacle of the stunts they try and land. Smell the diesel, feel the sun. Get outdoors and witness a melding of man and machine, the creation of something that is quite entertaining and exciting to watch.

The X Games are full of Xs true, but if you X out the media aspect, and simply go for the “Oh” factor, on that end, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
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Jordan Ikeda is a former Rafu staff writer and resides in Van Nuys. Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.