Tower Bridge ramp, big crowd, underdog win launch Sacramento’s first X Games
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- Kevin Peraza used the Tower Bridge feature in all three runs and finished third.
- Justin Dowell won the men’s BMX park with a top score of 97.00.
- X Games officials expect about 50,000 fans to attend Cal Expo over the weekend.
The first X Games event ever hosted in Sacramento had a bit of capital region flare, with two of the yellow ramps painted like the Tower Bridge, and BMX rider Kevin Peraza took full advantage of it Friday evening.
Peraza, known for his creativity, style and route design during his BMX park runs, was the only rider to utilize the faux Tower Bridge in all three runs, grabbing onto the ledge and kicking off the ramp with his wheels on top of his regular flips and twists that ignited the packed crowd at Cal Expo.
“The people are so open and so kind (in Sacramento). So to use a feature that’s so well known in the city is obviously a key statement for me,” Peraza, who competed for XC Tokyo, said after his run. “It’ll remind me of how exciting this event was, with something so special like that.”
While his style and usage of the bridge wasn’t enough to earn Peraza the win, he took home third place with a score of 94.00 in the first event of the three-day Sacramento X Games, also the inaugural stop on the new MoonPay X Games League.
Even before the eight competitors started their first 45-second run on the park course, hundreds of fans lined the arena and the crowd only grew into the afternoon. The men’s BMX park event was one of three contests hosted Friday, in what officials expected to be a slower day ahead of the busy weekend days.
X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom said in a news conference Friday that he expects 50,000 fans to come to Cal Expo over the course of the three-day event, which features three musical performances on Friday and Saturday and 18 BMX, skateboard and motocross events across the weekend.
Dowell goes from undrafted to champion
Unlike Peraza, silver medalist Logan Martin of XC New York and a majority of the eight-man field, Justin Dowell didn’t hear his name called during the inaugural X Games draft in March, despite being the reigning gold medalist in the BMX park event, one of the games’ flagship contests.
Immediately, Dowell showed the four clubs — representing Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and São Paulo, Brazil — what they were missing.
Dowell’s first run scored a 95.66, which would have won him the day no matter what he did in his next two rounds. However, he came out in the third round and put up a 97.00 to hold off strong challenges from Peraza and Martin, who was the last competitor of the day.
“It’s not that personal against the guys, they’re all my best friends in the world, and I compete against them all the time,” Dowell told The Sacramento Bee after his run. “But they knew when my name wasn’t called on draft night that I had a bigger purpose here on this trip.”
While Dowell was largely dominant Friday, his second run did include a fall, one of many throughout the competition, even for a field that featured seven former gold medalists in the event. Martin was the only one of the top three to not fall, as he became the only competitor to score above 90 in all three rounds.
Dowell said the course layout was especially difficult because it was built more for skateboards — the women’s skateboard park event immediately followed the men’s BMX.
“I’m really adaptable to any style of course, and this one was challenging for a lot of the riders, so I just used years of experience to my advantage,” Dowell said. “I’m only 26, but I’ve been competing for 20 years. So I got a lot of experience.”
What to expect over the weekend
Though Friday was expected to be the slowest day of the competition, the atmosphere at Cal Expo was anything but dull. Music was blasting, a T-shirt cannon launched into the standing room, the Sky Ride was moving, and food trucks and sponsored booths lined both entrances to the X Games area.
Justin Shaffer, of Sacramento, brought his son, River, to watch Friday’s games. Shaffer is a longtime BMX fan and said he and his son were sad when the planned 2025 Sacramento X Games was canceled, intensifying their interest in this year’s games.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Shaffer said just after the men’s BMX park event.
Fans hoping to get a good view of the events should show up early. People lined up at the BMX park competition early, and with standing room only, it is a good idea to show up early to get in the front. But for those who arrive late and can’t manage a great vantage point, there are also big-screen projections.
There are four main courses in the area — dirt, park, street and vertical — all with different styles of judging and competition. Scouting out which events you are interested in is a good idea, though the events will rarely overlap, typically taking about an hour each.
The full schedule can be found on the X Games website, XGames.com.
Tickets were still available for purchase on the X Games website as of early Friday evening, ranging from $19 single-day entry tickets to more than $400 premium tickets with access to the concerts on top of the X Games events.
