FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

The competition hasn't backed down. This year the fans can expect that the riding has progressed to an even higher level than last year. So a lot of good things will happen this year.

We all know the competition venues. We all toured there last year, and everybody is quite confident and happy with the set ups that were already in place last year and will be coming back this year.

Confidence is running high on the Tour. We're all excited and behind it. It's just going to be another outstanding year.

A lot of guys have been putting in a lot of time in the off season to getting ready for the Tour. That's something that in years gone by people didn't really train for, so to speak. BMX was such a one time deal at one time in its life. But now with the introduction of the Dew Tour, it's become a proper tour, and people have seen the benefits of what can happen when you obtain the Cup for the year.

There is a lot more professionalism coming to BMX. In fact, in all aspects of the Dew Tour, everybody trains because this tour means so much to all the riders who come out there.

I know from the BMX side of things, as both an announcer and BMX rider, the people who I'll be looking at this year from vert are Steve McCann and Zack Warden. They will be the breakout stars in that category in 2008. They had a tremendous rookie year last year, but they've definitely got that experience under their belt now. They're going to try and progress from last year.

I also think Chad Kagy's going to start making moves on the Dew Tour. I definitely think those three are going to be a definite competition to anybody who is challenging for the Dew Cup this year.

For BMX Park, Daniel Dhers is looking for his third Dew Cup in a row. I've got a feeling that the challenge from Mike Spinner and Ryan Guettler will be even more prominent this year. Both of them have seemed to have taken their BMX riding to another level by hiring personal trainers so they can both get as fit as they can.

I think that was one of the problems for them last year. They just couldn't keep on par with the Dew Cup champions. So this year they'll all be playing on an even course. It's going to definitely be exciting.

My pick for dirt this year is Anthony Napolitan. 2007 wasn't his greatest year. I think coming off the win in '06, he sat down and expected to come out with the same stuff that he had the year before. He learned a very hard lesson. BMX progression waits for nobody. Everybody is hungrier than ever to win titles. He learned his lesson in '07, and I think he's starting to figure that out now. He's coming off strong in this off season.

I also have my eye on Cam White, the second place finisher from last year. He's doing well in pre Dew Tour contests this year. He's going to be a tough one to beat, especially having to take a cruel loss against Ryan Nyquist like that. You can expect big things from him.

Ryan Guettler was unstoppable in the first year of the Dew Tour, and I definitely think he will be rising to the top this year. He's hungry for it. He's not had the best of luck since his winning ways in the early years of the Dew Tour, but I think he's putting the time in and he's definitely trying to make his mark on the Tour again.

For me, this is going to be my second year as part of NBC's broadcast team. I'm really pleased to be a part of that, because BMX is something that I have a lot of passion for. I love both riding in the event and talking about what's going on through the events.

I know last year it was more of a play by play scenario where I called out a lot of the tricks that were being done and didn't really elaborate on them too much. I think, for me, last year was definitely a learning curve. It was just something that I had to do. I subsequently watched all the programs and learned from that. 

But this year we're going to inform the viewers on why they do the tricks, what their strategy is coming into the events and the stories behind the battles. There have been many great battles in the Dew Tour. More often than not, there have been great stories left out of there. So we intend to involve more in depth views on the action this year.

I'm just looking forward to just watching some of the wildest action that the Tour has ever seen. I think 2008's going to be that year, so it's going to be great. I'm totally looking forward to it.

Some questions that were asked to Jamie were:

Jamie, can you talk a little bit about the story of how you originally got into BMX? How old you were and what the circumstances were surrounding that?
JAMIE BESTWICK: Well, I got into BMX when I was 10 years old. BMX at that time was all the rage. It was the first time it had come around. At that point in time, it was just BMX bikes. BMX tracks were few and far between in England, and most of the footage and competitions that I ever saw were all coming out of the United States. At that early stage it was just more to me about having a bike and enjoying this radically different bike that had come on to the market. It was a lot less progressed than it is now. The kids of today are so lucky to have places like Woodward Camp and the AST Dew providing an outlet for them to go and challenge and compete against the best guys in the world. It's something that wasn't readily available when I first started riding. That's not a bad thing, though. I feel that it's done me a lot of good to be competing at this time of my life rather than early on. I feel if I would have had to go through this in my youth, I don't know how long I would have stayed with it.

How do you evolve into freestyle and Vert?
JAMIE BESTWICK: It all came from the racetracks, really. We were lucky enough to have a racetrack built by our local government. I had always seen pictures of races and how great they looked. But actually coming in and putting it into place, it never gave me the feel of how the pictures looked. The one thing that used to draw me back to having fun with the bikes is I would always jump the last table top on the track and that was something that really got me hooked. Around the same time as the track was being built, our local BMX club started up. Once we found out about that, the difference between the two was they had four to five jump ramps rather than a full track. So once I caught my teeth on the track and learned how to jump, I went to the BMX club and found that the ramps were far more interesting than racing around a full BMX track. So for me, I just dropped into this club at the right time and just went from there. It was all I wanted to do at that point.

How old were you then?
JAMIE BESTWICK: Ten years old.