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the gate and with live TV, but ev-
erything went well. I don't think
there needs to be a whole lot of
changes to the program. Just
come back and do it again and
hopefully the track's a little more
racy but either way it's good."
It's safe to say that pretty
much everyone recognized the
importance that the event had
on the sport.
"It's huge," Baker said about
the event. "It put us in the
spotlight with a lot of other great
types of sports and in an interna-
tional spotlight as well. I think we
got a lot of other top athletes that
are digging flat track now and it
seems like when you've got fans
that follow somebody that thinks
that they're cool they'll catch on
to whatever they like. I think a
lot of people had a little bit of an
eye opener of what flat track is.
I think it did something huge for
our sport.
"All in all I think they put on a
great show for the fans. It obvi-
ously wasn't an ideal racetrack,
but an outsider looking in, I
think it was a good show for this
venue. I think it looked really
good on TV so I think it was a
very good promotional deal for
our sport."
The winner, Smith, perhaps
was the happiest of the lot.
"For what we had to work
with the rain and the new track,
it was as good as it could be,"
said Smith. "Everybody worked
their asses off. My hat's off to ev-
erybody at the Circuit of Ameri-
cas, the crew on the flat track,
ESPN. Really if this would have
been any other type of flat track
we wouldn't have been racing.
That showed because the track
Briefly...
feet during the races; the vibe was
pretty electric. As such, ESPN was
also pretty happy with the event. "It
was an awesome first-year event,"
said Tim Reed, X Games' Vice
President. "It was great to have the
bikes, athletes and everyone here at
X Games Austin. The race was really
exciting, we learned a lot and we are
already looking forward to year two
and making it better."
Bryan Smith didn't just take home a
gold medal. Part of the spoils going
to the winner at the inaugural event
was a brand new Harley-Davidson
Street 750.
