The First ever King of the Animal House Invitational is over and this year’s crown goes to Dennis Enarson. The battle for the car between Enarson and Ryan Nyquist was actually so close, nobody could call it. These guys separated themselves from the rest of the field with mind boggling bangers never before seen in the Animal House. Our only wish is that Wade had not gone down on his first trick (jersey barrier flair) and been knocked out due to an ankle injury that prevented him from walking. It would have been awesome to see what Morgan Wade would have brought to counter the ongoing battle between Nyquist and Enarson. 2 of the biggest tricks we’ve ever seen would have to be Nyquist’s double bar out of the top of the pocket wall (he also 540’d out of the top as well) and Enarsons contest ending double whip transfer to the huge quarter wall. The video you see online does not do any of this shit justice. It’s so much bigger than any of it looks on film. The Dew Tours of the sport could learn a lot from this type of event. The reason the riding was so huge was the format and the overall atmosphere. The jam format is an absolute must to keep the energy flowing and the tricks bang’n. Having to wait 2 minutes between riders (like in Dew Tour) is an absolute buzzkill and clearly handicaps the riding as shown by what went down here.
The festivities were capped of with an awards dinner in downtown Greenville featuring a tribute to one of the true pioneers of the sport Ron Wilkerson. Mark Eaton put together an awesome retrospective of Ron’s BMX history in a 15 minute video that was followed by a cool “Legend of Legends” trophy presented to Ron by Dave Mirra. Ron spoke for a few minutes and seemed genuinely surprised and clearly stoked to get the recognition long overdue to one of the original badasses of BMX.
Overall, this has been an amazing event and an awesome way to end a hectic contest season. The level of riding was clearly off the hook with nobody holding back. Even the guys who knew they didn’t have a realistic shot of winning the car, brought everything they had. We hope next year all riders will be rewarded with something for busting their ass to put on an amazing show.
A huge congrats go out to the big winners of Enarson, Nyquist, and Mast.
By Sean Hargraves
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