By Brian Bubash
Brian Bubash puts on a good show for the final round of the XDL Sportbike Freestyle series.
Indianapolis is by far my favorite event of the XDL series. Riding on a shutdown street in the middle of downtown Indy during the
Moto GP weekend sets the stage for an awesome show!
Friday saw a torrential downpour of rain during Individual Freestyle qualifying. Despite the unfavorable weather, crowds packed the bleachers to watch the XDL competition.
The rain didn’t affect my qualifying run that much. Being from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I am not a stranger to riding in wet weather, which gave me an edge over my competitors. I felt I had an excellent qualifying run with good execution and my strong performance ended up landing me in second place for Individual Freestyle. I was happy about my result, but I hate qualifying in the top three because it puts a lot of pressure on you for the finals.
The finals were later that same night, and luckily Mother Nature chose to cooperate. The rain eventually stopped and the pavement dried out. The dry pavement allowed competitors to ride harder which began to heat up the competition. Finals are run in reverse order of qualifying, which meant I would be riding second to last.
Bubash collects his first XDL victory and the ladies.
When I finished my run, some of my friends told me I did well. My friends won’t lie, and if I didn’t have a good run, my friends would tell me so. I also felt like I had a very solid run, and felt confident in my performance. XDL differs from most judged competitions. In XDL, competitors do not know their score until officials present the awards. It’s an agonizing wait, however, when all was said and done, I stood atop the podium, going home with the first place trophy and prize money!
I’d like to say thanks to all my sponsors for helping me to get to this point and hopefully this is the first of many victories to come!
