With the right people involved it can't go all that wrong. Andy Zeiss and Achim Kujawski organise the BMX part and they know what they're talking about. They invite their friends to help out and ride and have a good time. With cool people around it's hard not to enjoy yourself. 
The contest was a head-to-head comp. Two runs each, best run counts. Winner transfers to the next round. Loser is out and can enjoy the rest of the riding from the sidelines. Losers in round one were: Axel Juergens, Romuald Noirot, Mike Buse, Sven Lehmann, Moritz Kauper, Benny Paulsen and Tobias Wicke who tried to jump but crashed a few times and called it a day giving Ben Wallace an easy transfer to round two.
Those who counted the riders will notice that something ain't right. If you have 7 rounds (14 riders), you end up with 7 winners. This is where the Lucky Loser Text voting comes in. The rider who is out in the first round but received the most text messages will transfer to the finals. This makes it 8. With T-Mobile and Sony Ericsson as sponsors it's a way to make some money back, or have people use their mobile phones and start talking about it. Local Benny Paulsen won the text message voting and received a spot in the 2nd round.
Benny Paulsen got paired up with Ryan Nyquist and his participation stopped right there. Patrick Guimez had a killer first run against Ryan Guettler who had to step it up to make it through to the next round. He did. The battle between Ben Wallace and Ben Hennon was close the two Ben's aren't very familiar with the big dirt jumps or dirt jumps in general but they have skills to adapt. Hennon is on a Colony these days and claims it to be the best bike he's ever had. Ben has been riding and building some trails in Newcastle too so he was in fact getting ready for this comp.
Even a broken nose in practice didn't stop him but Ben Wallace eliminated his fellow countryman and it was the solid 360 downside whip on the last set that did it. Kye Forte met Markus Hampl in round two and the German kicked out the 2005 world champ. A "Best 360" contest was thrown in for everyone to enter. First prize, you guessed it, a new mobile phone! Some riders hucked themselves over the last set but the winner of the comp was Ryan Guettler who pulled a sweet 360 backflip in front of the loud crowd.
In round three we had Ryan Guettler versus Ben Wallace, and Ryan Nyquist against Markus Hampl. Again two runs each with the best score counting. Ryan Guettler had been doing huge frontflips over the big first set. It was amazing to see how consistent he had those fronties. The former Dew Tour Dirt champion of course had plenty of tricks for the next two sets and pulled something new out of the hat every time. He was stepping it up when he needed to and took it safe when the transfer was in the bag. Ben Wallace just got on the bike after a wrist operation and did not want to risk things. Especially when he was leaving for the USA for three weeks on Monday after the comp. His bike had shown up and he was stoked about that. It would have sucked big time to have not bike at the comp and fly to the Local Exposure tour without a bike.
Ben Wallace started off with a scratch run and Guettler did a good one. Ben's second one was a scratch too so it was easy cruising through the 6 pack for Ryan on his second run to make it to the finals. Nyquist eliminated Hampl by using his first run score. He too could use through the pack on his second run after he knew that Hampl had not beating his first score on his second solid run.If you are tired of reading this report by now you should know how tired the riders were at this point. The waiting in between the riding was long and walking back up that starting hill took its toll. The finals suffered from
it as Ryan Nyquist won the comp with a mediocre run (for his standards!). Guettler had a scratch run and bailed on a 720 on the last set after he had done a front flip and a single tailwhip on the previous sets. Nyquist first, Guettler second and Hampl beat Wallace for third.1. Ryan Nyquist
2. Ryan Guettler
3. Markus Hampl
Best Trick comp: Ryan Guettler
One down, two more to go. Maybe we'll see you at Pinneberg or Berlin. Your choice.
BdJ
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.