Alaska riders go to extreme

WASILLA — Wasilla snowmachine rider Dane Ferguson didn’t reach the finals of the ESPN Winter X Games freestyle snowmachine event, but he’s not complaining.

“That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Ferguson said Monday while preparing to return to Alaska from Aspen, Colo., where the games were held.

Ferguson was one of three Alaskans in the 10-man freestyle event, one of the signature events of the made-for-television games. Also participating were Jimmy “Blaze” Fejes and Paul Thacker of Anchorage. Fejes narrowly missed a trip to the four-man finals, finishing his preliminary run in fifth, Ferguson was seventh and Thacker placed eighth.

Ferguson said he could have ridden better.

“I wasn’t too happy, but as long as I walked away that’s good,” he said.

Ferguson’s run at glory wasn’t without its highlights. During one run, he set an unofficial world record by covering roughly 130 feet in the air on a backflip. Ferguson said he felt like his backflip-heavy runs were solid, and he thought his scores could have been higher.

“Unfortunately, the judges didn’t,” he said.

Fejes said he believed the judges may not have had much love for Ferguson’s style.

“Sometimes it’s not how good you ride, it’s how you look doing it,” he said.

Getting to ride on the big stage, however, did have its perks for Ferguson, who landed a sponsorship with beverage company RockStar during the event.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said.

Like Ferguson, Fejes said he felt like his runs could have been better. Because of pre-race tweaks to the layout, Blaze said he didn’t have much time to prepare for his preliminary round runs.

“I was sort of winging it,” he said.

Fejes also said he wasn’t looking at the event as the huge deal it’s made out to be by the media. As a professional rider who does shows worldwide, he said his focus has been primarily on those events. Also, he was slowed by an injury that limited his practice schedule leading up to the X Games.

“I only had eight days to practice,” he said.

Still, he’s not making any excuses, and said he figured he’d finish about where he did.

“That’s exactly what I thought I’d get,” he said.

Levi LaVallee won the finals, narrowly beating out Joe Parsons.

While Alaska’s contingent of riders failed to medal, both Fejes and Ferguson said a stronger bond between Last Frontier riders was forged in Aspen.

“It’s almost all the Alaskans versus the rest of the U.S. down there,” Fejes said.

Those ties could eventually lead to an all-Alaskan X Games rematch in the Valley. Ferguson said he, Thacker and Fejes discussed holding an exhibition at Harry’s Track on Vine Road in Wasilla in the coming months, where they’d be able to showcase their skills for local fans.

“We all think we can do better,” Ferguson said.

Though the details of such an exhibition have yet to be finalized, Fejes said he’d love to return to Alaska for a show, as long as it’s for charity.

“If I get to come up there and do a show, it’s gonna be for a good cause,” he said. “I’m definitely into it.”

However, Fejes said he’ll have to find time in his schedule, which right now includes trips to Europe and Australia in the next few weeks.

If such a show does happen, Fejes said locals will definitely get their money’s worth just by watching Ferguson, who he said is as fearless a rider as they come.

“The guy’s got incredible talent and even bigger…,” he said, using a commonly-used anatomical reference to describe Ferguson’s all-out riding style.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com