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DAY TWO - DIRT When I woke up Friday morning, still a little bit tired, hungry, and in desperate need for the bathroom I knew that it was going to be an interesting day. You see, this was only the second time that I was going to see a dirt contest in my life, and it was at Woodward. For those who have seen other dirt contests you are probably used to the 4 or 6 pack that is setup for the riders to hit. At Woodward the jumps are built on a hill and the setup is a 12 pack that gets bigger and bigger all the way down the hill. Most of the photos from the event were taken over the biggest set which was about 20 or more feet across and boosted the riders about ten or more feet above the lip. Probably the most difficult thing the riders had to deal with was the hill since they usually needed to feather their brakes between the jumps to slow down a little bit and not overshoot the landings. As a bonus, the perfect weather of Thursday held out for Friday and low winds, blue skies, and fluffy clouds were all around with about 85 degrees for the high... VERY nice for the East Coast in July. From now on we should just call dirt the TJ-Ryan show because that is all you seem to hear these days... and Woodward was no exception to this. The qualifiers left a rider by the name of Scott Wirch in first place in a tie with Ryan, but in the finals it was a whole new game... In tenth place there was a name that everyone knows, but doesn't expect on this list - Dave Mirra. Out of the original 32 riders, Dave made the cut at ninth and finished in tenth place. Dave seemed to be fighting the dirt in a way that he normally doesn't when on street or vert. This included a very hard fall in practice as well as a few missed tricks in his runs and left his well out of the higher placings. Fourth place through ninth place were all within about a two and a half point margin. The riders were all making it from the top to the bottom of the course cleanly with some decent tricks... but none were real standouts and none really did poorly. It would have been very difficult to judge their placings overall. The next jump of two and a half points happened between fourth place and third place as the top three set themselves way above and ahead of the prior riders. Beginning with Cory Nastazio who was hitting backflips form the very first jump and even was throwing in a lookback during the loop to make things interesting. Second place and first place were way to tough for me to call. There was NO question who was going to be up there, and in the end, Ryan and TJ were less than .15 of a point apart in score. But both were more than a point in front of Cory and 3.5 points ahead of the rest of the field. The second place award ended up in the hands of Ryan who still probably had the best trick and run of the series as he did three back to back 360s over the first 6 pack, had one setup air, then blasted the ONLY 720 of the day over the biggest set of doubles at the contest... and he landed perfectly. So much so that he was able to hit a double barspin suicide over the final set of doubles. Incredible... but not enough. TJ flows. It's as simple as that. He doesn't miss tricks, he doesn't sketch landings, he doesn't do a setup air between each jump, he just goes higher, smoother, and does tricks - more often and more consistently than anyone else. During the day TJ was doing lookbacks so far that he was hitting his helmet on his bike. He had is so dialed that during his final run he threw that lookback into a backflip and you could hear the click of his helmet as the bike peaked upside down over the big doubles. Just another day of riding for TJ - see you tomorrow. Friday's announcements included my hookup at Woodward being shut down by managers at the camp and a word that I would have to find other accommodations. So I hooked up with Kim Klisiak, who was staying with Matt Wilhelm, Koji Kraft, ??, and ?? who were all staying in nearby State College. That night we mobbed a Chi-Chi's which had to not only put up with us, but the Standard team, the Eastern team, and Mark Losey (Ride Magazine) who just seemed to like having things thrown at him. Otherwise, we went for a short night riding session, got hassled by cops, and got to bed by about one o'clock. |