Place: Newport, Rhode Island.
The Hoffman Sports Association (HSA) was brought in to handle the BMX portion.
For the second year running, ESPN successfully pulled off the ultimate in sports events, bringing together more than 400 of the world's more unusual athletes for seven days of pushing their machines, minds and mettle over the edge at the 1996 ESPN X Games. Several defending champions from last year's;s inaugural Extreme Games showed up to defend their titles against adrenaline junkies from across the globe. They rocked the streets (and waterways) of Rhode Island in nine event categories (biking, bungy jumping, eco-challenge, in-line skating, sport climbing, skateboarding, skysurfing, street luge and water sports) and drew hundreds of thousands of psyched fans to each venue.
STREET 1-Dave Mirra (Haro) 2-Jay Miron (Schwinn) 3-Rob Nolli (GT/Dyno) 4-Joe Rich (Standard) 5-Mike Escamilla (HB) 6)Rob Sigaty 7)Dave Osato 8)Colin Winkelman
The riders had to clear two sets but only scored on the second.
Because of the general intimidation (and high injury rate) of the massive Dirt jumps, the event favored those riders who specialized in Dirt. As a result, the top positions all went to BMX racers.
AA Pro Robbie Morales who got bucked, overshot the set, crashed, and broke his collarbone. His crash made all of ESPN's highlight shows.
Specialize's TJ Lavin qualified first by pulling a perfect backflip over the trick set. The crowd loved it, ESPN loved it, and the judges gave it their highest score in qualifying. Flips remainded the crowd favourite in the finals and so did Lavin.
T.J. Lavin, Ride BMX UK october 1998: I was real new. Fresh blood, I didn't know what to do on TV. You don't realise you gonna have to watch that shit later. You do a lot of crazy stuff, act real stupid but it was a really good time. I was 19 and in the running for the win. (...) That last flip in the contest was gonna be a no-handed flip, I'd learnt it that week. As soon as I went into the air I knew I'd blown it. I thought maybe I'd still won.
Joey Garcia, a former "King of Dirt" took first without ever resorting to a backflip (he did harder, but less flashy -at least to the crowd.tricks), but let the audience know who they were dealing with by boldly taking a "victory run" after his win -and landing a perfect loop. Second place went to Las Vegas native T.J. Lavin, and premier racer Brian Foster took third.
Steve Swope, TWBMX november 2004: We had to build the X Games dirt jump in 1996 and ESPN asked for a materials list. Outside of how much dirt we needed, shovels, and everything else, I put down eight sticks of dynamite, a 40-galLon drum of diesel fuel, and a trash can full of cold ones every night at five. About a week later, the director of competition called me up and said, 'Hey, no problem, everything looks good, but I think we'll have a pretty hard time getting you dynamite.' He took it seriously and I just started laughing.
DIRT 1-Joey Garcia $3000; 2-TJ Lavin $ 2200 3-Brian Foster (Schwinn) $1600; 4-Jay Miron (Schwinn) $1200; 5-Jimmy Levan (S&M) $800; 6-Kris Bennet (S&M) $600; 7-(tie) Vaun Stout (TNT) $300; 7-(tie) Tim Fuzzy Hall $300; 9-Taj Mihelich
www.dailymotion.com/benbmx, march 2009: BMX dirt aux Xgames 1996 avec TJ Lavin, Taj Mihelich, Kris Benett, Jay Miron, Joe Rich, Joey Garcia, Tim "Fuzzy" Hall .
VERT 1-Matt Hoffman (HB) 2-Dave Mirra (Haro) 3-Jamie Bestwick (Haro) 4-Jason Davies (KHE) 5-Dave Osato (Schwinn) 6-Alex Reinke (Heavy Tools) 7)Rick Thorne 8)Alex Reinke
