FMF Cup
This is the national championship event. The rider with the most points in FMF Cup at the end of the season will be the XDL and National Champion, the undisputed king of the hill in sportbike freestyle. 2008 saw a neck-and-neck battle between Nick “Apex” Brocha and Bill Dixon that came down to the final run in Long Beach. 2009 was a clean sweep by factory Yamaha rider Bill Dixon. What will 2010 bring? Tough competition, that is for sure. Here is how the system works. The season consists of six events. Riders are allowed one “bye”, which means they can skip a competition or drop their lowest score. At each event riders must first battle for one of the 15 qualifying spots. Then they have to lay down a total of three 2 minute runs during prelims and the main event. The top two scores per rider are added up and averaged out to arrive at the final score. This is similar to X Games scoring for skate or BMX or even FMX. The maximum score per run is 100, assigned as follows: difficulty (40), overall (40) and flow (20). For details on scoring, visit the section on judging.

Speed & Strength Sickest Trick
XDL is all about innovation and progression of tricks and there is no better place to see it than during the Speed & Strength Sickest Trick competition. Each rider has two attempts to execute a trick he or she announces to the audience ahead of time. There is no time limit. One of the best parts about this competition is that it's judged by fellow competitors who hold up scorecards from the pit wall. Speed & Strength Sickest Trick is our most popular competition because you’ll see everything from the crazy to the daring and technically super difficult. Past tricks have included a back flip from a Christ to the seat of the bike while it is moving, a Harley jumping over a bunch of people lying on the ground, 180 drift stoppie and a whole lot more. This is also where you will see tandem competitors pull off the latest and greatest. If you think you’ve seen it all, think again because we can guarantee that something new will pop up in this competition every time.

Sartso Women’s Cup
Just as in other action sports such as snowboarding, surfing or wakeboarding, women are starting to have an ever-increasing impact in XDL. Traditionally women were partners in tandem but at the end of the 2009 season there was so much interest from female riders we gave them their own competition. The judging rules are the same as for FMF Cup except each rider has one (3) minute run. The Sartso Women’s Cup is the first-ever national championship for female sportbike freestyle riders and will be part of most XDL events. For a specific schedule please check xdlshow.com. 2010 will be an enormous year for women in our sport because there will only be one first-time champion, and given that there are no other female championships in the world, the XDL champion is also the unofficial world champion.

K&N Circle Challenge
Circle wheelies require a high skill level to perform because they are so technical. And that is in a parking lot by yourself. Imagine having to do 10 rotations as quickly as possible against a fellow competitor in front of thousands of fans. That is the essence of the K&N Circle Challenge. Riders line up side-by-side and enter the competition area for a one on one face off. When the starter gives the signal the riders clutch up into a circle wheelie and start spinning. The first guy to 10 wins. If a rider falls, or their foot touches the pavement, that is considered a DNF and the remaining rider wins. One judge is assigned to each rider to ensure an accurate count. Our director of competition watches over the whole thing to determine the winners. After each face-off the winner goes to one side of the competition area, the loser to the other. The winners then go up against each other until there are only two left for the finals. In some cases there is an odd number of participants, which means we end up with three riders instead of two.

Aprilia Aprilia All Star Challenge
The Aprilia All Star Challenge is the ultimate combination of sportbike freestyle riding and racing. It is a spec competition in which each athlete rides an identically prepared bike. The course consists of 8 cones spaced 20 feet apart, a scrape zone and a stoppie zone. The riders compete one at a time and the objective is to complete the course the fastest. Once they leave the starting line the riders need to weave through the cones with the bike in a rolling burnout. At the end of the cones the rider does a 180 and heads back to the start/finish line. On the way back he has to attempt a tail scrape. If the rider is successful he earns a one second time bonus. A judge is in place to verify a successful attempt. At the start/finish line the rider does a 180 around the officials and heads down the other side of the course. Halfway down he hits the take-off mark to raise the bike into a stoppie and holds it until he reaches the end of the stoppie zone. Then he has to land the rear tire in the target box for another one second time bonus, do a 180 and execute a rolling burnout through the cones back to the start/finish line. A judge is in place to verify a successful target stoppie attempt. Time is started and stopped when the rider crosses the start/finish line. The top guys do all this in less than 25 seconds. Sound hard? It is.

Team Battle
One of the most spectacular feats of riding you will ever see is well executed, synchronized riding. Team Battle is a competition that allows riders to form groups of three to five guys and execute a choreographed, three-minute routine. Although serious, since there is prize money at stake, Team Battle also highlights a lighter side of the sport. It starts with the guys choosing their groups and team names. A team name often reflects a group identity (Team Cali Alliance) or it can be a jab at another team (Death Squad Killers). The joke here is that Death Squad was a team that had a lock on the competition so another group formed in an attempt to beat them. Team Battle is judged but part of the judging is to take audience appeal into effect, so you’ll see some teams going for all out fan appeal with crazy antics, and others trying to wow you with never before seen precision. Both are great to watch.

Freestyle Burnout
This competition usually takes place at the end of an event because the guys like to go a little crazy and sometimes destroy their bikes. Technically each rider is allowed one minute to put on any kind of burnout. This can be a drift, an acrobatic combo a medley of burnouts, stand still burnouts, fire spitting, you name it. What usually ends up happening is that it turns into a freestyle session sometimes lasting 5 minutes per rider. That usually occurs when a rider tries unsuccessfully to blow out his or her rear tire. On the other hand, Bill Dixon blew out a rear tire in ’09 at Nashville in under 20 seconds on a stock R1. One thing is for sure. There is lots of smoke and lots of noise and most important of all, lots of entertainment.