X-Games: Now that's entertainment

Twice over the years has there been word of a London Grand Prix. Park Lane, Oxford Street, pits in Hyde Park... Fabulous. Once, back in 2004, the then mayor Ken Livingstone allowed a showcase event with Formula 1 cars in the middle of the city during the build-up to the Silverstone race, but it was all for show; burnouts and engines on the limiter in order to please the crowds hanging off lamp posts to see over the acres of 'health and safety' barriers.

Closing the streets of downtown Anywheresville will get harder and harder as the state gets ever more cautious. California though; now that's a different matter altogether. Only two weeks ago the main Figueroa drag through the centre of Los Angelis was closed to allow rally cars to race around for three days with massive live TV action and more than 141,000 people coming to watch. Welcome to the X-Games.

If you've never heard of the X-Games, then think dudes on skateboards, 18 tattoos, big Oakleys and large amounts of bravery on skateboards, BMXs and Motocross bikes that defy belief when you see them close up. And I mean defy...

Most car people had probably not heard of it until Colin McRae rolled his gold Subaru in LA's Olympic Stadium during the rally final of 2006, but for extreme sports in the USA it is the place to show your tricks. You know, before McRae saddled up six years ago, most Americans thought he was a made up computer game character like Lara Croft but with more balls. The American crowd loved him. They had just discovered what we'd been enjoying since he got hold of a Group N Sierra in the British Open Championship in 1989.

I received the call to commentate on the X-Games Rallycross section this year while heading out for steak frites one evening during the Le Mans MotoGP weekend. Huddled in the doorway of a nice looking shop opposite the cathedral, my last weekend in July was booked. I couldn't wait.

I'd been in awe of Will Gollop and Martin Schanche as they battled for the European Rallycross title around Brands Hatch in late Autumn sunshine with Des Lynam on Grandstand, but became depressed as the battle for space on pre-cable TV ensured that the sport progressively became more and more hidden as higher-profile events fought it.

I commentated on the British Rallycross Championship highlights in 2009 after the series was taken over by the Doran family (who have given it a big push in the UK), so I had already had a recent involvement in the sport. But when I saw two-time World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm at Pikes Peak that year with a mint Olsbergs Fiesta, I couldn't help but prick my ears up. This was what 600bhp rallycross really needed; smart, well-engineered and well-presented cars rather than botched old Group B machines that were sadly a bit tatty on close inspection.

McRae made a real impact on the 2006 crowd © LAT

Head-to-head racing in the confines of a stadium doesn't do it for me. It's too manufactured for TV and the hardcore viewers soon realise they're having their legs pulled. "He just got into third gear there for a moment," shriek the commentators. As a great rally friend of mine once called it "bubble gum for the eyes".

So what was X-Games Rallycross in 2011? A 0.6-mile track that was 70 per cent tarmac and 30 per cent compacted gravel with a 'joker lap' detour that took cars over a 55-foot jump right over the heads of their rivals who were not taking the joker on that lap. All cars must take the jump at one point during their race. Fast, punchy, explosive all aimed at the PSP, Twitter and Facebook generation for which talk of MySpace provokes the question 'My What?'

Heading the line-up was X-Games legend Travis Pastrana, the man who landed the first backflip trick on a Motocross bike, in a Subaru while fellow extreme sports celebrities like Shaun White (snowboarding) and Bob Burnquist (skateboarding) needed their own bouncers to keep the crowds from them, the latter throwing himself off a 90-foot ramp, taking off, flying 60 feet, landing, doing a 50-foot quarter pipe and then landing. The place went nuts!

But we don't do skateboarding, BMX tricks and Supercross on mainstream TV in the UK; the eight hour time difference hardly makes it friendly viewing. An afternoon event in LA is beyond most people's bedtime on a Sunday night in the UK, and even then it's hidden away on one of those many channels you don't subscribe to.

X-Games 17 (yes there have been 16 previous events) was live on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN 3D and online. Full-on wall-to-wall coverage meant I did my preparation thoroughly, but what excited me more than anything was that it harked back to my years involved in British and World rallying from 1989 through to 2002 as a mechanic, press officer and then TV reporter, let alone seven Dakars on site from 2001-2010.

"You'll be coming straight off the back of the Brickyard 400, Toby," said the director. No pressure to get my opening lines right then.

Rallycross at this year's X-Games soon got rid of the stadium cliche as cars blasted from 0-100mph down Figueroa Street in downtown LA, past the Staples Centre and the Nokia Theater, around the bus station, the LA Exhibition Centre, Hooters, the trendy nightclub ICON UltraLounge and over a 55- foot jump that involved cars jumping over the tops of their rivals.

This was also to be the fourth and final round of the USA based Global Rallycross Championship that was headed by Tanner Foust in his immaculately prepared 545bhp Ford Fiesta. Never heard of him? Well think of a Starbuck'd version of The Stig without the white helmet. That's right, he's the 'driver' in the US version of Top Gear, stunt driver in films such as The Dukes of Hazard and The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift and the world record holder of the longest car jump ever recorded at 332 foot, that he set at the Indy 500 this year. Oh yes, and a he's top bloke too.

Things got heated at the start of the rallycross final © LAT

His rivals this year were YouTube sensation Ken Block (just the 33million hits for the Montlerey Gymkhana 3 hewn), Gronholm, the lanky Finn who brilliantly told a Welsh copper "I know I can go, I just want to have the last word," Dave Mirra (X-Games royalty) in a Subaru and his team-mate David Higgins - a Manxman who has just wrapped up the 2011 US Rally Championship and taken the Washington Hillclimb course record. Oh, and Liam Doran was there too with his sledgehammer approach that is reminiscent of McRae's.

Pastrana even had the event's schedule moved to fit in with him doing the Motocross 'best trick' on Thursday night, flying to Indianapolis for his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut across Friday and Saturday, then overnighting back to LA for the rallycross on Sunday. It was dubbed the 'Pastranathon' and given a massive push by everything and everybody during the build-up to the event. Pastrana, 27, wanted to pull off a back flip and a 360-degree turn on Thursday night but fell hard onto to the dirt, smashing his right ankle.

Scrub that private plane. Scrub that NASCAR debut scrub his rallycross drive on Sunday.

Or so we thought...

With Pastrana's pain threshold somewhere out in the atmosphere of Pluto, he sat out a day in his hotel room before doing some test laps on Saturday with hand controls adapted by the Subaru Rally Team USA guys. Mountain bike levers were adapted behind the steering wheel to pull for the throttle as his heavily bandaged right leg - with his toes sticking out of the bandage - was duct taped to the transmission tunnel. He used the clutch off the line and then left foot braked for the rest of the way. If any FIA person is reading this, I am not making this up. I shudder to think what zoo-strength pain killers were ingested and where they might have been on a banned list.

It was awesome news that Pastrana was back in the show. His resourceful manager blagged time on Saturday afternoon for him to go testing up in a car park out of town thanks to some help from the Los Angelis Police Department. It ain't what you know...

Saturday itself featured head-to-head rally car racing with a simple knockout system right through to a final that pitted Doran against Gronholm. A Kenneth Hansen-run Citroen C4 versus an Andreas Eriksson-run Ford Fiesta. Doran, on Cooper/Avon rubber, would always win the drag to the first corner with the extra bite from the tyres once he let the clutch in against Gronholm's BF Goodrichs. Doran beat Gronholm 2-0 in the final to win his first gold medal on his maiden appearance at the X-Games. It was a genuine upset that many statesiders had not seen coming. His 'fear nothing, risk everything' catchphrase had worked. And it was quite cool from a gunslinging kind of guy.

I had to remain unbiased as I got a £50 note out of my pocket and placed it Queen face forward to the track before that final race, but it worked for the Brit. Much as I like Marcus, with his pudding bowl haircut and his disjointed English, he's won a bit in his time and it was good for the show that Doran won to raise awareness of the sport in the UK.

Doran and his team triumphed in the Saturday final against Gronholm

Sunday had four-lap heats that whittled down 16 cars to eight for an eight-lap dash for the rallycross gold medal proper, the really big prize. More than 3,500bhp unleashed itself on the blast to the first 90 degree right-hander. Doran got ahead but Foust was right on his tail and inevitably they touched. There was no love lost between them as Doran sat embedded in the tyre wall and Foust manhandled his hobbled machine while holding onto third. Former Freestyle Motocross hero Brian Deegan hit the front and was never headed. Foust got back to second with Gronholm third at the line to make it an all-Ford podium. Pastrana was on course for fourth but went off on the last lap; the onboard camera showing that his taped-up leg came adrift from the transmission tunnel during the impact.

Having worked in F1, MotoGP, rallying, the Dakar and hillclimbing, it was a fantastic experience to see the amount of momentum grow towards a sporting weekend that is mainly based around fun and good times. No moaning, no complaining and hardly any rules to note of. Just great fun to be had all at 2pm on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the middle of LA and straight after the Brickyard 400 TV broadcast.

ESPN executives are coy about when X-Games might travel over to Europe, but it will happen sooner or later. I know nothing about skateboarding and BMX freestyle, but watching their finals by the side of the 90-foot drop, I could not help but be taken in by it. It's fresh, fun and something that you'd better watch out for in the future. Rallycross started in 1967 at Lydden, but it's taken a massive step forward with the format they had at X-Games 17 by truly bringing it to the people without dumbing it down. Can you imagine Boris Johnson closing some of Park Lane, Hyde Park, Piccadilly and Regent Street for the X-Games in 2015? The Americans did just that in downtown LA.