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The annual Extreme Thing dirt jumping contest in Las Vegas brings out the big guns, and we just posted fresh photos from the event. Make sure to scroll down to read the story from the event and watch the video. 

Click here to watch the video.

Video/text: Kyle Carlson  

The Extreme Thing is an event in Las Vegas that takes place every year. It usually consists of about 30 terrible bands, a group of amazing break dancers, a really bad freestyle rap contest, and, conveniently, a BMX dirt jumping contest. Vegas local Ricardo Laguna puts in all the work to make the contest happen. He does everything from getting everyone out to Vegas for the contest to actually designing the course and building the jumps.

The course was a bit different than years before... It consisted of a drop-off style roll-in, a few hips and berms, and a step-up jump that involved jumping on top of a playform and then jumping off of it into a dirt landing—pretty wild stuff.

A few of the highlights this year were as follows:
-James Foster double-tailwhipped the first set almost every time he dropped in. I'm pretty sure he was the only one to do it. He also got a truckdriver-to-downside-whip with barely dragging a foot.
-Fernando Sabat was doing original tricks all day. The main standout was his one-footed-seatgrab barspin.
-TJ Lavin runs Las Vegas and was buzzing his shoulders on inverts both ways. He also did a sweet can-can-lander.
-The Machine did a bunch of flip-suicides and 360-suicides. Front brakes and dirt jumps go well together.
-Dave Dillewaard may very well do the biggest 360-inverts in BMX.
-15-year-old Dennis Enarson is out of line. He did double-tailwhips down the step-down, tailwhipped the drop in, flip-whips and flip-barspins on the last set, and barely missed pedals on a triple-whip on a jump that was waaaay too small.
-Corey Bohan can do everything he does regular just as well opposite.
-Luke Parslow had the run of the day with a flip-whip on the first set, flip down the step-down, tailwhip over the hip, and frontflip on the last set. It was probably the best possible run for the course.

When the contest was over Corey Bohan walked away with first with James Foster right behind him in second. The contest was definitely successful and definitely had a bunch of free Vitamin Water. I drank 12 bottles.

Big thanks to Ricardo Laguna and the city of Las Vegas for making this event happen.