SAN FRANCISCO -- As you walk onto Piers 30-32, the X Games park looks, well, odd. The tall structures and dirt mounds may seem strange to the outside observer. But a closer look inside the park will unveil the real genius that creates the excitement of the X Games. Though the dirt mounds and tall structures may seem unusual, the thought process that created these structures is extraordinary.

Everything in this park is not what it seems.

"We are not engineers, we just build big piles of dirt" - Tes Sewell, Moto X sport organizer and course designer

To the naked eye, that is exactly what the Moto X course looks like -- big piles of dirt. But there is a method and process to the overall design of this course. The designers faced many challenges, but perhaps the greatest is creating a course that is both challenging to the riders and exciting to spectators. It is for this reason many features are put into the course.

"The ramps are a feature of this thing that is relatively unique," says Sewell. "The biggest thing in this course for us is that it's got a big floorspace so we wanted to make some big jumps on the outside and create a cool feature in the middle."

The cool feature Sewell is referring to is called a bowl, and it's designed as a mirror-image bowl, so every feature on the right hand side of the bowl mirrors every feature on the left side of it. For example, a takeoff on the right will land on a landing on the left. The same takeoff on the left hand side will land on the right.

Sewell candidly spoke about the design of the course and provided some useful insight into the features of the course.

There is also a "center-kicker" in the middle of the bowl, which means a guy can take his bike, and whip it, lay it down sideways, and land on any one of the faces (sides) on this bowl.

"When you first begin to design a Moto X course, you have to look at the physical floorspace first," says Sewell. "This course is 300 long and 150 wide, but the real technical challenge of this course, is that half the course on the long side is four feet lower than the other half of the course. So instantly, you are faced with a challenge that you have got a big 'dip' that runs down the length of the course, and how do you deal with that?" says Sewell. These are some of the obstacles that a designer may run into, but he has to handle them and keep moving.

This 2000 X Games course was designed by Sewell, Moto X legend and two-time AMA champion Micky Dymond and Dane Herren. "Micky Dymond took about a week to put the course design down. When we got here (San Francisco), we had to move a few things around. We changed some the original creative concepts," says Sewell.

"The things that most people won't see immediately when they first get here over the next few days, is the fact that we have got this big step-up mound, which is a 16-foot high pile of dirt, which is designed for Step-Up Competition, which is about vertical height. This mound will be knocked down to about 13 feet, and it will become a landing from a dirt take off to a dirt landing about 80-90 feet right in front of the crowd, which should be a really impressive kicker," he said. It is this creative design that makes the X Games exciting to the fans.

Not bad for a big old pile of dirt, huh?

"The course will still allow the jumpers to showcase their technical skills and also have a kind of Evel Knievel feel to it."- Steve Swope of Hoffman Bikes.

"Basically, we are on the pier this year, so space is really tight so we had to figure out something that would work within our allotted space," says Swope, who is also co-designer of the Bike Stunt course.

The bike stunt course is quite innovative. A 20-foot start ramp was created at a 55-degree angle, and the gaps between the jumps are between 16-25 feet. This allows the riders to perform their biggest tricks. Now one may figure a course so technical may take a long time to create.

The construction of the course itself is a combination of human manpower and machinery. "We use a loader to dump the dirt, hand-shape it, hand pack a lot of it and then we roll the faces with a golf cart. You wet it down and roll it with a golf cart, you let it dry. This usually takes us about two and a half weeks," says Swope.

"We found the best dirt we could find down here in Southern California, (1,000 cubic feet), which is about 80 truckloads of dirt, and got it packed really good," says Swope. "We want it to be good for the X Games."

So when you're sitting at home enjoying the X Games, keep in mind that there is a great deal of creative thinking and innovation that goes into creating the Bike Stunt, Moto X and Park courses. There is definitely more to it than meets the eye.

  Send this story to a friend