Welcome to the team When haro BikeS announced they were hosting a contest to find the newest member of the 2007 BmX team, most people thought it was too good to be true. But once word got around, slowly but surely it was clear there was no hoax. Words by kelly Mackay
Riders were asked to submit introduction videos, which were posted on vitalbmx.com. The top ten video entrants, chosen by Ryan Nyquist, Colin Mackay and Rob Darden, were then flown from anywhere in the world to Greenville, North Carolina to ride Nyquist’s private warehouse and take part in a reality show for Fuel TV. On January 16th the top ten riders from four countries were announced. They were Steve Woodward from California, USA, Mike Fede from New Jersey, USA, Marcus Tooker from North Carolina, USA, JJ Palmere from Pennsylvania, USA, Matt Sparks from Michigan, USA, Marcos Torres from California, USA, Josh Perry from Massachusetts, USA, Nick Cooper from Brisbane, Australia, Tony Watkinson from Liverpool, England and Steve Bohn from Montreal, Canada. All ten riders arrived in Greenville on the 15th of February, some having travelled for more than two days. Once all together and introductions had been made, they were thrown into a jam-packed schedule of riding and filming. The competition proved to be tough too judge with such a diverse group of riders. Matt Sparks pulled a tailwhip to tailwhip back over the box jump as well as attempting a huge hand plant on a 16 foot vert wall. Although he didn’t land it, he did manage to snap his stem but walked away without any permanent injuries. Steve Woodward pulled a bike-flip air on a 7-foot quarter and a fast-plant flip over the spine. Very impressive for someone who recently claimed he had never flipped a spine. Nick Cooper packed a bag of tricks including a wallride to truckdriver, can-can foot jam on the wallride and a 180 one hand, one foot over a ten-foot hip. The weekend brought some impressive riding. So impressive in fact, that Haro were unable to pick just one rider as they had originally planned. After hours of deliberation a decision was made that two riders would be made part of the team. The winner was announced in elimination format, the bottom five being eliminated first. Once the first elimination round was over, only Steve Woodward, Marcos Torres, Tony Watkinson, Marcus Tooker and Australia’s own, Nick Cooper remained to sweat the final results. At this point, not knowing that there would be more than one winner, Nyquist joked whilst announcing the winners, thus delaying what everyone wanted to hear. Eventually it was announced that Nick Cooper and Marcus Tooker would ride for Haro in 2007. The weekend was a great success and many thanks need to be given to Tony Degallado, Pete Demos, the whole Haro crew and vitalbmx.com for allowing minds of the industry to be open to new and exciting ideas and funding them to become a reality. ISSUE 25 JUNE 007
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