Courtesy of Jamie Anseeuw of BMRT.com, Race Team Manager

The BMR team arrived late Monday night, January 23 in Carbondale CO, (just outside of Aspen) to begin high altitude testing in preparation for Winter X-Games 10 which started Saturday, January 28th.

With parking at the X-games venue scheduled for Thursday, it left little time, the team worked hard Tuesday and Wednesday to get the sleds calibrated and the riders’ lungs ready for the most important single race of the season.

Special thanks must be extended to long time BMRT supporter Noel Crawford and his family for their generous support of our team, making a practise track on their land for our use. Tod Welch of Carbondale came with his groomer to shape the track for us, and Orin Moon of the Aspen Fire Department helped us get our rigs shiny clean using the departments fire truck! It was great to get a chance to meet up with the Crawford family, and Orin again, and also to meet Tod Welch….great people!

Friday was practise on the venue track and all the team riders looked fast going into Saturday’s single knockout elimination round, with 1st to 4th in the 8 rider heats moving on to Sunday’s semi-finals and 5th to 8th going home.

Morgan and Allard emerged from the elimination heats, disappointing results for sure after all the hard work. Taylor had an unfortunate get off while running second in his qualifier, Coonishish and Elam were fast and gained some valuable experience practising and racing with the top 32 pros who qualified to be at the event…

Sunday’s semi-final saw both Allard and Morgan transfer directly to the final on Tuesday night, which gave the team an extra day to prepare. Team mechanics Garth Gordon, Wayne Hoffman and Gilles Thibeault made good use of the extra time finding better calibrations for the clutching and carburetion than had been used in the qualifiers.

At the green flag Tuesday night, Morgan and Allard both got pinched off and had to work from mid and back of the pack starts, hoping the longer race for this year could play in their favour. Early race leader Malinowski was landed on by Lavalee late on lap 2, and while Lavalee scampered off, the carnage left behind held up the rest of the pack giving Lavalee a huge lead. Morgan kept working away getting himself into 2nd by lap 9, Allard up to 5th. Morgan’s pace was blistering and he continually picked away at Levi’s lead. With two laps to go it was evident that even Blair’s speed wasn’t going to be enough to overcome the headstart Levi had, and then a miscue by Levi caused a slight get off, and while Levi restarted his sled, Blair cruised by and onward for the win. A games record fifth gold medal, no other competitor has ever won 5 gold medals in one sport before. Dave Allard lost one spot late in the race finishing 6th, a good result for his first X-games final.