Riding HIGH

Mike Sciacca

The city of Los Angeles is the official host for the ESPN X Games IX,

but Sunday’s downhill BMX competition portion of the 10-day extreme

sports festival had a definite Huntington Beach flavor to it.

Six Surf City riders displayed their talents at Woodward West Camp

in Stallion Springs, Calif., east of Bakersfield, the site of the

game’s third downhill BMX competition.

The ninth annual ESPN X Games is showcasing more than 300 of the

world’s best action sports athletes competing in several sports

categories for medals and prize money.

The competition continues today through Sunday at several venues

in the Los Angeles area, although the Staples Center is the games’

primary venue.

Aggressive in-line skate, bike stunt, dirt, park, moto X and

skateboard events will take place over the next four days.

The surf competition, which was included in the X Games for the

first time, was held Saturday at the south side of the Huntington

Beach Pier.

Todd Lyons led the Huntington contingent in Sunday’s downhill BMX

final with a fourth-place finish.

“I was pretty stoked,” said Lyons, primarily a dirt jumper who was

making his sixth X Games appearance. “I was one of the last guys to

get invited to this event.”

Lyons was followed by Neal Wood in ninth-place, Robbie Miranda in

11th-place, Brian Foster in 12th-place and Foster’s brother, Alan, in

13th-place.

The quarter-mile course featured 20 sets of jumps, with a 45-foot

distance between jumps.

“We had never done that before so at the beginning of the

competition, we all were over-jumping,” said Alan Foster, who, at 33,

was the senior competitor among the Surf City group.

“I really didn’t care where I finished this weekend,” he said.

“Obviously, I wanted to do well but my main goal was to do well and

just make it downhill.”

In the downhill BMX qualifying event, which set up Sunday’s final

field of competitors, Wood finished fifth, Miranda was sixth, Brian

Foster placed ninth, Lyons was 22nd, Alan Foster was 30th and

Huntington Beach’s Christophe Leveque was 31st.

Thirty-three riders qualified for Sunday’s final but Leveque

pulled himself from the competition.

Lyons, making his ninth X Games appearance, made it to the elite

eight round and finished in fourth-place in the championship final.

In the consolation final, Wood finished first, Miranda and Brian

Foster were second and third, respectively, and Alan Foster was

fifth.

“That’s a pretty big thing for Huntington Beach to have so many

riders finish so high,” said Alan Foster, who was competing in his

third X Games and has two, top 20 finishes to his credit. “It’s big

deal just to qualify for the event.”

Each of the Huntington athletes have tasted X Games success.

Miranda, a former X Games bike stunt dirt competitor, was the

defending downhill BMX champion; Wood finished in sixth-place in his

X Games debut in 2001; Leveque finished 15th in his X Games debut

last year and Brian Foster is a five-time X Games medalist, who won

the Gold medal in the dirt competition in ’98 and is making his

seventh X Games appearance.

Brian Foster, however, is the only local to continue on in the X

Games: he will be among 20 racers in today’s dirt competition at the

Staples Center and is one of 20 racers in Saturday’s park -- formerly

known as street -- competition in the Staples Center parking lot.

“I’m just looking to keep the ball rolling,” said the 31-year-old,

who began racing in 1981 at age 8 and has been in the professional

ranks for 10 years. “I felt pretty confident going into last Sunday’s

downhill but things just didn’t turn out. To me, though, it’s more

about having fun. At the end of the day, if I can ride the next day,

then that’s all that matters.”

Sunday’s downhill BMX event was the final competitive race for

Alan Foster, who is married and the father of two. At the conclusion

of Sunday’s consolation race, he announced his retirement from

competition.

Alan Foster began racing in 1981 and has enjoyed 15 years on the

professional circuit.

“I’ve had an awesome time,” said the 33-year-old, who noted that

“22 or 23” is the average age for a BMX professional rider.

“I’ve made a boat-load of money from this, but if you were to tell

me when I first started out that I could make a living from this, I

wouldn’t have believed you. It’s just been an unbelievable career.”

* MIKE SCIACCA covers sports and features. He can be reached at

(714) 965-7171 or by e-mail at [email protected].