XGames V

San Francisco, CA 99

XGames 99 was held in San Francisco, June 25th - July 3rd. The street luge portion was held near the Cliff House, June 25th - June 27th.

Friday June 25th

Beagles start the festivities off by clowning around with Jerry in the pit areas.

The riders quickly gather around to prepare for the first run of the Games. Beagle discovers that lane 3 has some problems, as Biker demonstrates. Notice that Biker's back trucks aren't touching the ground! Turns out that lane 3 has a large enough hump to make the majority of the riders luges to bottom out. An attempt was made to remedy the situation, the start line was moved about a foot forward to the beginning of the black paint. Some globs of cement were also chipped up. This helped the problem, but did not totally alleviate it. You'll notice that most of the riders in lane 3 tried to position themselves off of the center of the lane to get the best purchase. Despite this 9 of the first 12 dual races where won by the rider in lane 3. And one time the announcer called it "Biker's beloved lane."

Aerial shots for the weekend were provided by the Mountain Dew helicopter.

Seal Rock Run is quite a beautiful run. About 6 tenths of a mile, running along the ocean. The course started on a steep residential road, "Alta Mar." Shortly after the start there is a hard right onto Merrie Way, where you get you first glimpse of the ocean. After several shallow twists the riders head towards the big turn in front of the Cliff House. Turn 2 , turn 3 passes in front of Louie's. A restaurant overlooking the Sutro Baths. At this point they need to start getting set up for the big turn. The turn starts at deceptively similar to the other turns, but mid way through it dives hard to the left. More than one rider crashed in this turn. After making it through this turn, the riders will see the ocean crashing down on San Francisco's longest beach. There is a fairly straight shot from here to the finish line.

Saturday June 26th

I was able get a few shots of some of the riders during the morning practice.

_{Darren Lott}	_{Sean Slate}	_Biker	_{Rat Sult}
_{Wade Sokol}	Oliver Totshning	_Biker

Lugenstein tried to get the upper hand by making some custom wheel covers.

Dennis Derammelaere beats out Lee Dansie to stand on top of the Dual Podium. After the medals were given out, a special poster was given to a lucky fan. All of the riders autographed an XGames poster.

Beagle and Lugenstein apparently have a competition to see who can bring the most outrageous vehicle to he Games. In the past they've brought limos and corvette's. This year Lugenstein had a hummer and Beagle had a El Camino . Beagle was asked to appear on the opening show of the XGames which was being taped Saturday evening, On the way over to the venue, we made a quick stop on Steiner Street, where Lugenstein posed for the camera. Later Beagle plays one of the video games in the XGames studio while waiting to be interviewed.

Sunday June 27th

Between races, riders were interviewed in the "Street Luge Lounge."

Shortly before the XGames Rat broke his arm in a mountain bike accident. He still managed to strap himself in and ride at the games. He had a metal contraption attached to his cast to help him push.

Waldo decided he needed help from a mascot, something to guide his way perhaps.

David Rodgers came from last place, take the best line through the Cliff House Turn to take the gold in the Super Mass. After Rogers passed him, Sean Slate was in the rear. Yet he pulled through to get the bronze.

Most of the crowds had left by the time the awards were given away at the finish line. Estimates put the crowd at over 10,000! imagine the crowd that is currently near the finish line, that thick all the way up past the cliff house. It was a sea of people from the flags to the wall!

As the crowd was dispersing I found this interesting pair talking. It was a perfect shot, of course they started to leave before I got my camera out. So I asked them to pose.
For those that don't know that's Randal of Randal's Trucks on the left, and Louie of eXkate on the right.

And a parting shot of Waldo, his Do, and his mascot.