Haro team at the Dew Tour.

This last weekend was the opening round of BMX at the Dew Tour. Nyquist, Nastazio, Mackay, Tooker, Napolitan, and Enarson all in the house to kick the back end out in the windy city. Thursday was open qualifier where Cory, Dennis, Colin and Marcus all had a shot to qualify in dirt. The conditions couldn’t have been much worse. The dirt course could have flowed way better but the head wind was a killer. Just making it through the course in your run was more than half the battle. Nasty and Dennis were the only two to get through open qualifier for dirt. All the guys got through OQ in park qualifying pretty easily. Friday was on to the qualifying rounds for dirt and park, Nasty had two wind blown runs and ended his day early while Dennis was on deck in 11th after run #1. Being the last rider to go in run #2 it was make or break time for D. Dennis dropped in and owned the course moving all the way to 2nd to qualify for the finals later that night. While it was the hottest day of the year in Chicago, I opted to walk back to the hotel early skipping park qualifying and return for dirt finals at night. This later proved to be the best decision as right after second run of park started, the rain started dumping and thunder and lightning were hitting hard downtown Chicago. So gnarly, that the Dew Tour was forced to evacuate the grounds and hide everyone in an underground parking garage. While everyone was waiting out the rain at the event, I was at the bar having a couple cold ones waiting for the dirt finals later that night which obviously ended up being canceled. This meant that Saturday would be finals for all 3 events (Dirt, Park, Vet) weather permitting. The rest of the guys made it back to the hotel around 8:00pm and met up at the bar. Marcus had a couple brews and shortly after, Colin got a txt from Nyquist saying, “Second run of park is tonight at 9:30 – no shit.” I decided to stay at the hotel but Marcus had to go throw down some stunts after he thought the night was a wrap. Marcus, Dennis and Ronnie ended up not making it on to the final which left Nyquist as the lone Haro guy in the park final for Saturday. Dirt was scheduled to run at noon on Saturday and after Chicago got 4 inches of rain Friday night, that was not going to happen. Dirt got pushed back to 6;00pm and park finals went first. Ryan’s first run in the final was a banger and at the end of run #1 he was sitting in 3rd. In run #2, Ryan went for a 7 transfer and slid out, this put him back to 5th in the final. By the time dirt final was set to go, the wind had stopped for the first time. Dennis, in both of his runs ended up making it half way and getting stuck up on top of a step on step off crate. Not the runs Dennis wanted but after all he still ended with a big smile on his face and that’s what it’s all about!

Next weekend, Dennis and Ryan will both compete in Park at the X-Games while Dennis makes his debut to the X-Games street course. Check back here next weekend for an update!