Team Suzuki’s Travis Pastrana returned to the scene of his world-famous jump into the bay and won the 2000 ESPN X Games freestyle motocross competition in San Francisco, California, Sunday, August 19.
Taking advantage of a break in the AMA/Chevy Trucks 125cc U.S. Motocross Championships, the popular teenager from Annapolis, Maryland, used his RM125 to forge an early lead by topping the two-round preliminaries, used to cull the 15-rider field to eight finalists. In his second-round ride, Pastrana attempted a complete somersault. Though he didn’t pull it off, the crowd and judges loved the attempt to duplicate what only Carey Hart has been able to do in competition. (Hart accomplished a full somersault at last month’s Gravity Games.)
Pastrana went on to a winning performance in the final, with the judges awarding him 94.00 points. That easily bested the 91.33 routine posted by Tommy Clowers, who set a record a few days earlier in the step-up competition (sort of like a dirt bike version of track & field’s high jump). Brian Deegan took third with 90.33, while Cliff Adoptante (89.33) and Mike Jones (88.33) rounded out the top five.
Pastrana will return to the motocross circuit this coming weekend as the series visits Binghamton, New York, the next-to-last round of the season.
ESPN and ESPN 2 will broadcast the freestyle MX and other segments of the X Games several times this week. Check your local television listings or go to either www.espn.com or www.expn.com.
Also, ESPN announced that it’s taking the X Games to the world – and not just on the small screen. It will stage X Games events on five continents in the next year and a half, including International X Games Qualifiers, Junior X Games and the Asian Xtour, as well as the current Winter X Games and the seventh annual X Games (which may be held at a different venue next year).
In addition, beginning in 2002, ESPN will stage the X Games Global Challenge, with seven teams representing different regions of the world competing for that championship. Each team will consist of two athletes per region for each of the sports contested, and they’ll go for both individual and team awards.
