Dew Tour Ocean City Event Wrap Up: BMX

The Dew Tour is back in 2013, and thus far it has been a blast for everyone from the fans to the athletes.

Last year marked a new era for the Dew Tour, 2012 ushered in a new sense of a marquee event. An event that brought in bigger course builds, more free on-site activities for fans to become engaged by and just in general a much larger impression on everyone that it reached. Well, 2013 is looking to up the ante again and so far it has been a success!

This year at the Dew Tour Beach Championships everyone saw a new approach to building an exciting venue while maintaining a free environment to please the people. Additionally, the Dew Tour opened up a much larger portion of the professionally built courses to the public so everyone could get a taste. Comparably, the best in class athletes came back to beach with a new attitude to put on a show of technicality, precision but also with a never ending smile. From an increased amount of professional and amateur demos between the marquee events, to including a few smaller events that incorporated different aspect of the sports – the athletes that came out and gave their all put on a show unlike any other.

Now that the event has come and gone it is time to reflect on what was accomplished. Legendary athletes showed the world their very own contributions to the sports, while the rising stars came to fight for their chance to dethrone their idols with their newfound energy and creative takes. Below are snapshots from each of the events that took place on the beach with links out to the videos, photo galleries and details recapping all the action that happened on the sand.

Take a minute, probably a few, and look back on first stop of the 2013 Dew Tour and then be sure to share the highlights with your likeminded action enthusiasts, because this was only the first of three stops and you can expect it to get better with every one of them! Enjoy!

BMX Park

The format for the final brought back the top ten riders from the semi-final and broke them into two heats. For the first heat, five riders took both their first and second runs, then, they moved onto the second heat and allowed those five rider to take their first two runs. Following the second heat’s first two runs they shifted to a second round including all ten riders and allowed one more final run. Each rider received three, 45-second runs in total and were judged on overall impression with their best run counting toward their overall score.

Immediately the crowd went crazy for the first heat of riders as the runs clearly stepped up in technicality from the semi-final. Scotty Cranmer came out of the gate with big tricks such as a backflip double tailwhip, a flair up the giant step up and then a 720 down the next step down.In the second heat Ryan Nyquist and Drew Bezanson jumped into the mix and shook up the leader board. Nyquist tossed out a huge 720 over one of the larger box jumps while Bezanson manuled across the top of the wallride and then managed a disaster to tailwhip out on the wedge.

In the end it all came down to the final runs in the second round and believe it or not Nyquist stepped his game up again with a similar run but with the inclusion of a 360 double barspin over one of the larger box jumps added to his run. Nyquist was stoked on the win at Dew Tour saying, “I’ve done well in the past, but in Dew Tour this is the first time I’ve won the cup, so its a big one for me. Last year I came here and did well, but I just missed out on the podium. So that was my goal to just get a podium spot, but the fact that it was on the top spot was just icing on the cake.”

Results

1st – Ryan Nyquist – 92.50

2nd – Drew Bezanson – 91.25

3rd – Scotty Cranmer – 90.75

Click to see BMX Park article, photo gallery and hightlight video.

BMX Battle at the Beach

Ushering in a new discipline to the Dew Tour Beach Championships, the BMX Battle at the Beach bridged the gap and provided an appeal to the fans in the sand that were looking to see a different batch of riders and style. The BMX Street Session was made up of ten riders competing in one, 30-minute organized jam format. The course for the street session was made up of a nine-stair set with a hubba on each side as well as a rail down the center with riders allowed to go either up or down the set. The top three riders were scored and ranked on overall impression with an additional winner announced for the single best trick of the session – riders were judged on single tricks, not combinations linked by manuals received scores.

With the stacked list of BMX street riders it seemed like anyone could take the win, but there were certainly a few standouts – Dan Lacey was unquestionably one of them. Lacey landed so many absolutely insanely technical tricks you are going to want to watch the recap to consume them all. One that we have to tell you about was his backward grind to over toothpick on the rail – nuts. When asked how he felt about coming to Dew Tour Lacey quikly responded “Seeing the whole Dew Tour contest going off at the beach made for a reall good atmosphere. If it’s around next your I’ll defnitely be back for sure.”

 

Resuts

1st Place – Dan Lacey

2nd Place – Sean Sexton 

3rd Place – Chad Kerley 

Click to see BMX Battle at the Beach article, photo gallery, and highlight video.

BMX Vert

The BMX Vert Final was the first final of the weekend, and the crowd came out in full to show their support for the ramp riders. However, following a little trouble with evening moisture the event had to be postponed until the next day – the crowd wasn’t fazed and returned in full. The format for the final consisted of twelve riders each taking three, 30-second runs with the best of those runs counting toward their overall score. Then, the top six riders move on to the Final Round 2, aka the Super final, with another three, 30-second runs to throw their all.

Jamie Bestwick returned in an attempt to win his ninth consecutive BMX Vert Dew Cup and title, and if anyone can 9-peat we all know Bestwick is the man to make it happen. Vince Byron came to win and threw a giant 540 double tailwhip to let the people know it. As did Simon Tabron who took full advantage of the roll ins on the ramp to capitalize on his amplitude while throwing invert 540s and more. Steve McCann also came to play and showed off how much fun he was having with giant barspin to one-handed x-ups as well as the rarely seen candybar. Bestwick was ready to do whatever it took and came in with a massive downside tailwhip flair and later throwing the rarely seen candybar to remind everyone he has serious amplitude of his. But it was during his victory lap that Bestwick threw his most impressive maneuver, a fronflip flair for the crowd really made his 9-peat special. Congrats Bestwick!

Results

1st Place – Jamie Bestwick – 94.00

2nd Place – Vince Byron – 89.75

3rd Place – Steve McCann – 88.50

Click to see BMX Vert article, photo gallery and highlight video.

BMX Flatland

The format for the flatland consisted of three rounds with six riders going through the first round to decide the seeding for the remaining rounds – the first round allowed each rider a two and half minute run. For the second round the 4th and 3rd ranked riders will go head-to-head, as will the 5th and 2nd and the 6th and 1st ranked riders with each rider was allowed three, 60-second runs. For the third and final run the winning three riders from round two will compete in another set of three, 60-second runs. 

Following the first round for seeding it was Matthais Dandois in the top spot with Yohei “Ucchie” Uchino right behind him in second and Terry Adams rounding off the top three. Fast-forward to the end of the second round and we had the same three in the same positions looking at each other ready to go into the three-way final! With tensions rising through each of the three heats of the final round, we saw in that Adams held on to that third spot and sure enough Dandois held on to the top leaving Ucchie in second for his first Dew Tour appearance. Congratulations to Dandois on returning to the sand and reclaiming his flatland title! Dandois has always been a huge supporter of the flatland community and said, “We are back in the mix at Dew Tour and it feels good to be  a part of the BMX family.” Then commentated on the venue saying, “There are girls in bikinis on the beach and I have my friends on stage so I couldn’t ask for more, this contest is so good.” 

Results

1st Place – Matthais Dandois

2nd Place – Yohei “Ucchie” Uchino

3rd Place – Terry Adams

Click to see BMX Flatland recap article, photo gallery and highlight video.