Dirt Riot, San Bernardino, CA 2003

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Updated: February 25, 2003

By Jorge Cuartas

Beautiful, sunny, and surprisingly cold San Bernardino in Southern California played host to the H Bomb Films video release party for Huevos 6 (the newest addition to the Huevos film family). For those of you who haven’t been to Southern California or So Cal as many call it, everything seems to revolve around off roading in one form or another. ATVs and dirt bikes are in the back of just about every vehicle on the road, mostly lifted 4×4 pickups. The empty trucks are typically covered with MX stickers. And apparently Fox Tee-shirts are distributed at the border. This is one serious motocross state to say the least. So Cal also has millions of hot blonde moto-betties and punk rock chicks parading around half naked from the Pacific to Glamis. And there is definitely no shortage of eye candy on display at the premier. The Dirt Riot portion of the day started at noon and consisted of a 50cc pit bike race, an aftermarket expo, a quad supercross race, eight punk rock bands, and last but not least a quad freestyle contest.

The $10,000 SX purse was enough to attract some of the biggest names in ATV racing including Doug Gust, Keith Little, Kory Ellis, Tavis Cain, Jason Dunkelberger, Dana Creech, John Natalie Jr., Jeremy Schell, Nic Granlund among others. The Freestyle event was comprised mostly of H-Bomb’s “Bomb Squad” (at least those members not injured on the sidelines) and some big ramp to dirt hits. As expected, the combination of the letters F.M.X. and the words Punk Rock attracted thousands of fans making the event a huge success! H Bomb’s Wes Miller and Sean Semini had their hands full with this event but delivered with style!

Freestyle Qualifying
The event format was typical of any Freestyle event, the riders were each given 90 seconds to throw down their best acrobatics for the judges (which incidentally consisted of Jimmy Elza, Zac Willett, Cody Anderson and four to six others). The top three would qualify for the main event. After busting out a veritable plethora of heel clickers, superman seat grabs, can-can variations, nac-nacs, & cordovas. The judging staff deemed August Goebel, Kelly Chang and Taylor Moles worthy of the big show. Sean Sermini took on the MC duties for the day, but since he had been working around the clock for days on end to get the event ready, his voice sounded as though he had been gargling with gravel prior to the event.

Supercross
Kory Ellis took heat number one with a convincing win over Team Suzuki’s Doug Gust. Lone Star Racing’s Keith Little devastated the competition in heat two in a runaway. John Natalie (East Coast ATV) and Jason Dunkelberger (Lost Creek ATV) battled hard for second the entire heat. Dunk held off Natalie’s advanced all the way to the checkers. Dana Creech looked fast but crashed out of his heat race, while Tavis Cain (Duncan Racing) and Jeremy Schell (Trinity Racing) had a huge battle for third that went right down to the checkers (Schell made a pass over the finish line double, putting him ahead by inches). All in all, the stage was set for one heck of a main event!

After a long intermission, during which the spectators swarmed the pavilion and expo area, the main events got underway. The fans swarmed back into the stands as the opening ceremonies started. Event sponsor TCL customs brought out a couple of beautiful trucks that got the crowd on its feet and ready for a Dirt Riot!

The Main Events
The pit bike race was the perfect way to start the festivities as those guys put on an awesome race, every time someone fought his way into the lead, they were either taken out, or they would crash themselves out, either way it made for a great show.

The QFMX was next and the three finalists really got the crowd hyped as they threw down all of the sick tricks that they could muster. In the end the judges decided it was August Goebel who deserved the win, but second and third place were deemed a tie. In traditional Freestyle agenda, it came down to a jump-off for second place. Each trickster was given one jump with which to out do each other. Taylor Moles threw down with a little extra extension and came out on top for the runner up spot.

The front row of the Supercross Pro Quad starting grid looked like something you would find at a GNC as it had nothing but GNC pro regulars. Kory Ellis had first gate pick and used it wisely as he took the far inside. Next to him was Keith Little, Doug Gust, Jeremy Schell, Jason Dunkelberger, John Natalie Jr., and Tavis Cain. The holeshot would be imperative as the narrow, sandy course had proven difficult to make clean passes on. As starter, Nick Nelson gave the go sign, it was Pennsylvania’s own Jason Dunkelberger (Lost Creek ATV) aboard a borrowed YFZ450. Ellis (Alba/ATV Scene.com) tucked in to the two spot followed by Keith Little. Gust (Suzuki, Yoshimura IMS/Roll), Creech (danacreechracing.com), and Tavis Cain (Duncan Racing) battled for the important top five position.

As the riders made their way over the finish line double, Cain came up way short sending his YFZ flipping through the air. The crowd let out a collective “oooooooooohhhhhhhhh”, but Cain was quickly back on his feet. His YFZ was beat to a pulp from this huge impact though. In the turn immediately following Cain’s carnage, Little rear ended Creech locking their two quads together for a couple of laps. Out front, Ellis made a crowd pleasing pass on Dunk, and proceeded to check out. Not to be left out, fellow Pennsylvanian, Natalie, also got around Dunk, but it seemed as if it was too late, Ellis was on the gas and gone!

That is until he stalled his Alba Yamaha going into the whoop section by bumping the key to the off position with his knee. Natalie capitalized on Ellis’ misfortune and jumped into the lead, two kicks later Ellis was back in action in fourth place as Gust and Dunk had snuck past. Even though the track was supposedly “hard to pass on”, Ellis got aggressive and made it back up to second within a quarter of a lap! Up front John Natalie Jr. played it cool and cruised to the checkers earning himself the lion’s share of the $10,000 purse, Ellis came in second, while Team Suzuki’s Gust came in third.

Huevos 6 & Rock n Roll
The video premier started immediately following the SX race, as the crowd filed into the pavilion. The opening sequence came onto the big screen and the music started blaring. The video itself was pretty damn good, apparently the H-bomb film crew has been doing a bit of traveling as the first four segments took place in the US, Spain, Canada, Hawaii & Mexico. The video had all of the standard freestyle stuff in a lot of cool locations, the GNC & GNCC footage was definitely scaled back, and the mud goon and hill climb footage was non existent. Wes’ videos have progressively gotten more polished and this one was by far the most professional looking. The release couldn’t’t have come at a better time, as this thing will make a great stocking stuffer for anyone into ATVs. As for the rock and roll, unfortunately I’m an old ass man and I was way too tired to stick around for the bands, but from what I heard they were great, the crowd went nuts!