Right before I got tipped off to this story, I was watching a Stark Varg get whipped so hard, I thought the rider was going to land backwards off the jump. I mean, what the folks running Starks are doing right now is nothing short of reinventing the tail whip. And that's always been what makes the X Games so freakin' cool: the trick innovation.
From double backflips, to superman seat grabs, to insane tailwhips that beggar belief. All of them were thrown down in the face of incredibly stiff competition. And the riders, and sport of freestyle motocross, has been bettered for it. These riders are essentially Robin Hood smacking the shit out of the Sheriff with a steel gauntlet from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, knocking their competitors' lights out.
And that's honestly what it's felt like since the introduction of Stark's batshit electric dirt bikes. Between the lower weights, the less reciprocating mass, and the staggering horsepower, it's felt like these EV dirt bikes would take the X Games, and everyone else, and propel the sport to new heights. We'd get wilder tricks, more breathtaking feats of human ingenuity, and a return to what the scene felt like in the later 1990s to early 2000s when someone was doing something brand-new every single time I turned on MTV or ESPN.
But that's all come crashing down, as in an abrupt move that's caught a number of competitors off guard, the X Games has banned all electric dirt bikes from competition. All in the name of, and I quote, "maintaining a level playing field."
What an idiotic move.
So let's get to this straight off the bat. Here's exactly what an X Games representative told me when I asked about the ban.
"At X Games, we are committed to preserving the core of action sports while continuously evaluating new technologies," said the statement, adding, "Our current competition formats are designed around the performance and characteristics of traditional gas-powered bikes, which remain the global standard for elite competition. While we recognize the advancements in electric bike technology, our focus is on maintaining a level playing field and delivering the best experience for both our athletes and fans. We’ll continue to monitor the evolution of the sport and assess how new innovations fit within X Games competitions."
That's the official line. But I call bullshit on the "level playing field and delivering the best experience" portions.
It's no secrete that there's been acrimony in and around the paddock since the all-electric Starks burst onto the scene. While many originally saw them as toys, the "they are real motorcycles" riders, fans, and team principals, the folks actually doing the riding quickly threw down and caught everyone slack-jawed. And they could do it over and over again, turning out bigger, bolder, and wilder tricks and stunts. As is the case with these things, people started calling them cheat codes.
The same thing happened with FIM's Enduro Championship and Stark last year.
Fellow riders essentially got pissed at the folks riding Starks because they were lighter, faster, and with all that lower mass, you could do the most gnarly things you could imagine. Search social media for posts about the Starks at places like the X Games and you'll find no shortage of pro riders shit-talking the bikes. Talking about how they're something different compared to a traditional internal combustion dirt bike. And how they shouldn't either be in the same class as those traditional bikes, or that what X Games just pulled should be the final outcome.
A lot of people believed, however, and many still do, that they'll usher in a new golden era of freestyle motocross. But that's now all up in the air as they've been banned for essentially going too hard.
What's really frustrating to me is the wording of X Games' statement, and specifically the portion about "leveling the playing field." First and foremost, it's a competition. That is inherently not a level competition. You have winners and losers. That's not level anything. There are riders than can do things that others can't, which is the whole point; i.e. to see who can send it the hardest, most gnarly of ways.
But take the idea of a level playing field to its logical fallacy. A level playing field wouldn't have seen Chris Burandt backflip the emerging freestyle snowmobile setup, Tony Hawk pull a 900 on a smaller deck, the insanity that skiers can pull using freestyle, Travis Pastrana's entire career, and his double backflip along with the lips he designed to help him pull it off, or any number of other new technologies that have been incorporated before without a peep from those putting on the X Games.
You wouldn't have the goddamn X Games.
No, what we likely have here are a bunch of cry-baby competitors that don't like the Starks and other EV dirt bikes allowing riders to up the ante to the next level. To go harder than before. To take the sport of freestyle motocross to the next level just like Deegan and Pastrana and Carmichael and McGrath and Hart and Bartram did before them. And these same current riders got the folks at the X Games to capitulate to their crocodile tears.
What's more, the X Games didn't tell anyone about this ban ahead of time. Instead, riders were informed while they were reading the invites, and the respective rules for the events, to both X Games Japan and X Games Salt Lake City. They weren't told anything and the rules went out to all riders, not just those riding EVs. It was a salvo toward the EV riders, but a reassurance to those riding gas bikes. But again, all of which was done without any communication.
The lack of a spine to confront a contentious situation is ironic given what X Games represents.
