Always searching for the next big thing, Winter X adds flipping snowmobiles to this year's action sports extravaganza. JOHN MARSHALL checks it out.
(AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)
Freestyle snowmobiling, the newest sport at the Winter X Games, is akin to flipping a small car. (AP Photo/Nathan Bilow)
Imagine gunning a Volkswagen over a snowy ramp, then yanking the steering wheel hard enough to make the car do a backflip.
Seems impossible, right?
Maybe, but that's what some of the best snowmobile riders in the world thought about flipping their 500-pound sleds just a few years ago. Now the move is a staple of Snowmobile Freestyle, the newest -- along with Mono-Skier X and Snowboard Best Trick -- and perhaps gnarliest event in the 11-year history of the Winter X Games.
"It basically is a small car," said Chris Burandt, one of the world's best all-around snowmobilers. "After you see somebody do it, it's all mental because obviously it can be done, so it's just the big mental hurdle of getting over it and telling yourself that you can do it and then being able to actually go out an execute it."
But telling yourself that you can do it isn't all that easy.
Burandt had never tried a backflip before, but figured he would need the trick to medal at the Winter X Games, which run Thursday through Sunday in Aspen. So there he was last week, gunning his sled toward the ramp, backing off time after time. Burandt figures he "chickened out" about 20 times before getting up the nerve to intentionally flip a machine that could kill him if he doesn't land it right.
"I bet I was out there for an hour with everyone out there watching and waiting and filming," he said. "I just couldn't tell myself to do it and I finally got it into my head that there was no way I had a chance to win the X Games without a backflip -- which is so important to me -- so I just did it. It's pretty intimidating."
SWITCHING SPORTS
Launching motorized vehicles on snow is nothing new to Winter X; the previous five years featured the flying motorcycles of Moto X. But the problem with motorcycles is they're not made for the snow. Sure, the tires have spikes, but any variability in weather -- snow, wind, poor visibility -- and the riders have a hard time, if they're able to go at all.
Also, practicing tricks on the snow was all but impossible. Most of the riders perfect their form in foam pits located in warmer climes such as southern California, and the Moto X courses are ski areas the rest of the year.
As a result, riders were limited in the types of tricks they can do, and the event had become a bit stagnant. With freestyle snowmobile riding gaining in popularity and number of riders, Winter X organizers opted to make the switch this year.
"We're psyched to have the snowmobiles, which can take the weather, take off and land in conditions that aren't as precise as the ones the motorcycles need and they're just more sturdy in what they do," said X Games general manager Chris Stiepock.
OTHER NEWCOMERS
Snowmobile Freestyle's wow factor will definitely please the Winter X crowd, but the event that might surprise them most is Mono-Skier X.
It will feature disabled skiers racing in heats of four on sit-down skis in the same type of course used for Skier X and Snowboarder X. The Mono-Skiers showcased what they could do when it was a demo sport at X two years ago, barreling over jumps and kickers, their skis thrashing off the snow along the way.
The decision to add mono-skiing is partially financial -- it taps a whole new group of fans -- and it fits the X Games' credo of progressing sports to new levels. Even athletes in other sports are impressed with what Mono-Skiers do.
"I think as a whole the X Games has gotten as big as it has because of the different sports that they feature, and they're always trying to push different things," Burandt said. "This is just another realm. You look at me doing a backflip and say, 'No way.' I look at these guys bombing down the hill with one leg or whatever disability, and I'm dumbfounded. I can't imagine."
As for Snowboard Best Trick, it's not really a new event. It was a staple of Winter X in the early years, but was abandoned in 2001 because the athletes liked pulling big tricks in the Ski Slopestyle event better.
The idea to bring it back was hatched last year, when the Ski Slopestyle had to be shortened to a best-trick format because of low visibility. The riders liked it, and ESPN didn't lose any viewers because of it -- so it's back in the fold.
"A lot of them (riders) like it because they can bring a trick that they might not want to risk in a slopestyle competition, but they can risk in big air comp and really complete a trick that no one's done before," Stiepock said. "I think people are really going to like it. It's an easy comp to understand and the wow factor is going to be there."
John Marshall is asap's sports writer, based in Denver.
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