Near-flawless run leads to victory

When fellow countryman Simon Tabron had a slight mislanding midway through his second run at the BMX Vert finals, he slowed down considerably. The bump in the road was all it took to take one of the best athletes in the event out of the running.

Jamie Bestwick, who had a nearly flawless run his first time through, sat at the top of the ramp waiting for his turn to roll.

Tabron, however, made his way back to the top with plenty of time left in his run, stopped to shake hands with the man he knew was the winner and then proceeded to pull out a few parting tricks as the final seconds ticked off his allotted performance time.

Bestwick, victory assured by virtue of his 94.00 score in Round 1 of the finals by hitting a tailwhip to late turndown, a turndown flair and a big no-handed flair, didn't let that keep him off his bike.

The AST Dew Tour is as much about crowd pleasing as it is about winning, and Bestwick was determined to finish the event with a bang.

"I like the victory lap," said Bestwick, a Great Britain native. "I didn't quite do what I wanted to do but I'm still proud and I still managed to come out with a good run."

Indeed, after hitting a spinning tailwhip, Bestwick wiped out on the late-turndown landing and slid to a stop at the bottom of the halfpipe, arms raised in victory despite the crash.

Tabron, who scored 92.50 on his first run and knew he needed to pull out one of the best runs of his life to pass Bestwick, left nothing out of his bag of tricks. But the slightly off-target landing slowed him down just enough to derail his dreams of a victory.

Australia's Steven McCann, who is also competing in the BMX Dirt and BMX Park events, finished third with a score of 91.00 in his second run.

Bestwick now has a commanding 55-point lead over Tabron and 95 points over McCann in the Dew Cup standings through four events.

FMX PRELIMS: Utah's Sean Nielson enjoyed plenty of noisy support from a friendly home crow, but was unable to put together the perfect run in the Freestyle Motocross preliminaries.

Nielson was awarded a 72.50 on his second run after scoring 70.50 his first trip up and over the series up jumps in the parking lot outside EnergySolutions Arena.

Arizona's Nate Adams had the best run of the day with a 90.67 and chose not to complete his second run — with a spot in the finals assured. Jeremy Lusk did the same after a 90.00 run his first time out the gate.