Shift Racing XDL Championship report

XDL STUNT RIDING CHAMPIONSHIP REPORT – ALEX FLORES

Alex Flores took home the XDL Sportbike Freestyle Championship in front of a record crowd at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.  Check out his report from the season finale.

By Alex Flores

The 2007 XDL Series Championship is the most important event of the season, and I was prepared for battle. After a full year of hard work and dedication, it was time to go all out and fight for the crown. I started my trip off by getting everything together and loading up my converted bus, and after fueling up the beast, we were Final’s bound. All that was going through my head on the ride down was my run, carefully calculating all off my tricks in the short intense 3 minutes that we have to ride.

We arrived at the LBC late Thursday anticipating practice the next day. The venue was great…after all, who else gets the opportunity to strut there stuff in font of a haunted 80 year old cruise ship? Friday was alive with the top competitors in the world ready to tear it up in practice. I worked on my bike quite a bit, giving her a well deserved tune up, fresh tires, brake pads and some high octane fuel. XDL runs a safe 4 competitor 5 minute practice throughout the whole day. I felt great in practice nailing all my technical tricks, even though the surface lacked traction.

On Game day, I ended up putting in a solid qualifying run to claim the runner up position behind my teammate Chris McNeil, who sat in the first qualifying spot.  A 2nd position on the food chain was good, but I knew I had to step it up in the final.

After winning the target stoppie competition and getting dizzy during the circle challenge, the top ten individual freestyle finals were next. This was crunch time and the top dogs were ready. We went in reverse order of how we qualified so I was 2nd to last. I watched my fellow competitors throw down some nasty runs. “The prodigy” Aaron Colton was in the hot seat with the highest score of the contest so far, with only me and Chris McNeil left. I lined up and was ready to throw down the run of my life!

The 3 minutes started and I came in hot with a flamingo 180 endo right into my technical combo circle wheelies without putting a foot down. The crowd went nuts after I completed a sick set of combos, going from all the seat stander combos in the book into no handed circles, and then finishing with a drop down no handed sit down circle. Burnouts were next and surprisingly with no front tire push…the rest of my run was a blur. At the end of my 3 minutes I realized that I had just put down the best run of my career! I threw my bike down and the crowd went crazy. Anticipating a high score, I was ready for the hot seat.

The scores from the judges were calculated and I ended up getting a 93 to take the top spot from Aaron Colton, who had to step down and congratulated me. Chris McNeil was the last rider up.  He rode by, gave me the thumbs up and told the crowd, “That’s going to be hard to beat”. Chris was having a solid ride when a small crash ended his challenge, giving me the top score of the competition.

Winning the XDL Championship has been the biggest accomplishment of my career. It’s a dream that came true and all of my hard work and dedication to this sport has finally paid off…I have become a true Champion!

I would like to thank XDL, the competitors, sponsors, friends and family for knowing and believing in me. I have many more dreams and goals connected to this sport, and this is just the beginning of what I have to offer.

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