Daniel Bodin Wins X Games Gold In Freestyle Thursday Night

This year, Daniel Bodin didn’t talk a back seat to anybody on the opening day of the ESPN Winter X Games.

            The snowmobiler from Sweden has been a staple at the X Games the last four years, and each year he finished fourth in the Freestyle competition – definitely good enough to get attention and make the final, but always one position short of earning a medal and a spot on the podium.

            Riding in place of the popular Levi LaVallee, a former gold medalist who suffered a broken pelvis and other injuries when he crashed practicing for a jumping distance record, Bodin make the most of the opportunity and took home X Games Gold Thursday night in front of a record first-day crowd for the event, held again this year in Aspen, Colorado.  

            LaVallee is recovering from his injuries and unable to compete, but is was at Winter X to cheer on his friends and teammates, and Thursday he even announced along with fellow X Games gold medalist Chris Burandt over the national televison broadcast of the event. When it was over, LaVallee was like a proud papa.

            “After four years in fourth place, I think he would have been happy to just make it onto the podium. To go home with the gold, [I’m sure] he’s absolutely pumped,” LaVallee said.

            The competition started earlier in the day with qualifying runs which paired the field to the top eight riders. They were split into two rounds of heats for Thursday night’s live broadcast. The top two competitors in each set of heats would advance to the final.

  [Read more]

10 Best Things About Haydays — Sept. 11-12

The 44^th annual Haydays grass drag, swap meet and snowmobiling party is a less than a week away, and with its new location it’s bound to be interesting. Here is my unofficial, quickly thrown together and hardly thought about Top 10 Things About Haydays.

1. The Swap Meet – This is where you can find the windshield you’ve been seeking for your primary sled, the seat for your older sled and the clutch for your vintage sled. Plus, you can sort through the mess of clapped out dirt bikes, occasional kitchen appliances, old neon beer signs, off-brand used power tools, tires & rims, artificial Christmas trees and weed whips, among other things. Remember to bring your best haggling skills.
2. The Grass Drags – Call me old fashioned, but Haydays started as a grass drag, and I still truly enjoy seeing the boys (and occasional girls) settle the score for who can build and race the fastest equipment on dirt. It’s called a grass drag, but it sounds like the entire course this year will be on a clay surface. Either way, expect 500 feet of racing, lightning fast equipment, the smell of race gas and turbo-charged egos.
3. 

   Buy something...please....

   Vendor Displays – Whether you want to check out the new sleds, talk to the guys who make traction products, leer at the pretty girls tossing out Ski-Doo T-shirts, shop for a new jacket or helmet, dream about the hot aftermarket performance setup for your sled or subscribe to the best damned snowmobile magazine in the sport (and I’m not talking about Snowmobile, Race Gas, Snow Action, City Sledder, Snow Week, Sno-X, SX illustrated, Snow Trader, Hot Sled, SnoTrack, Invitation to Snowmobiling, or Race & Rally – they’re all dead!), there’s a lot to see at Haydays.

4. The Weather – Yeah, we all love winter, but it is kind of cool going to a snowmobiling event in shorts and a t-shirt, and better yet, seeing all of the gals at the event in shorts and T-shirts or bikini tops — helllllloooo ladies!  
5. The Motorsports Freestyle Shows – The high-flying freestyle show featuring sleds, bikes, quads and the occasional off-road truck has become a staple at Haydays over the last 10 years. See young men with more guts than sense fly launch off of ramps and do oddly-named and dangerous aerial maneuvers while obnoxious music blares through staticy speakers.
6. Seeing Vintage Sleds – Haydays has a formal vintage sled area called Memory Lane where you can restored beauties, and the swap meet with packed with unrestored relics. Either way, Haydays is a great place to celebrate this sport’s great history.  
7. [Read more]

Heath Frisby Wins X Games Gold

Longtime freestyle stalwart Heath Frisby of Bellevue, Idaho, broke through Friday night with an incredible Tsunami Back Flip to earn the ESPN Winter X Game gold medal in the Next Trick competition.

Frisby, 25, has been an innovator in the sport, developing tricks and generally being a leader in freestyle circles. But he’s never had a very good X Games showing, settling for bronze medals that last three years in a row.

On Friday night, in front of a huge crowd at X Games 14, the competition started out with a huge trick referred to as a heart attack back flip by Sweden’s Daniel Bodin in round one, earning a 89.33 score from the judges. The other eight competitors all took their best shots in round one, but when it was over Bodin held the lead with one round left.

One highlights of the first round was an attempt by the incomparable Paul Thacker at a no hand back, using a remote control to handle throttle duties on his snowmobile. It didn’t turn out great – he did a woodpecker on the dash while in the air, then landed very hard and snapped his head and neck backwards. It looked like mega-whiplash, but he rode away.

[Read more]