Red Bull X-Fighters Madrid 2012: Levi Sherwood defeats Dani Torres and Maikel Melero

What was promised is a debt and we were suffering for you in the sales to bring you the chronicle of the Red Bull X-Fighters 2012 in the bullring of The Sales of Madrid. This year we really wanted to see the evolution of Maikel Melero, the young driver from Albacete who step by step is placed among the greats signing a third place in one of the most important events of the Freestyle Motocross World Championship.

Ahead of you the two finalists, Levi Sherwood and Dany Torres they disputed a final round very showy. The Spanish, current defender of the world title, arrived in full recovery after his injury At the beginning of the season he is trying to recover the points lost in the general classification, climbing to fifth place after this second step of the podium and losing the victory by the minimum with the New Zealander Levi sherwood.

As soon as we started, we were surprised by the first guest of the night, Dani Sordo, who on board his Mini of the World Rally Championship (which the street Mini's would like to sound like this and have his appearance) filled us all with dust from the albero de Sales based on burnouts and jumps on the central mound. When Sordo left to enjoy the event, the first round of four pilots began with the Todd Potter's absence, leader of the general before arriving in Madrid, and Jeremy rouanet due to a fall in morning training and were recovering from their injuries in a Madrid hospital.

In this qualifying round they are full rotation tricks prohibited, like the backflip, so what counts most for the judges is what marked get the basic tricks done and connection with the public, and the best at this were Thom Pagés and Blake “Bilko” Williams going to the semifinals.

In the first meeting of the semis they faced Thom Pagés vs. Dani Torres. The Frenchman made two of the most spectacular tricks seen lately and never made in Madrid, baptizing one of them as Special Flip in which in mid-flight he released the motorcycle and performed a complete body turn on it, but neither his best tricks nor the aggressiveness with which he marked the tsunami and whip could against the force of Dani torres sheltered by the more than 20,000 spectators who were there so that he could win again in his land, he was advancing towards the final round.

The other semifinal would face our favorite Albacete, after Andrés Iniesta, Maikel Melero to whom in the last appointments we have seen how he has grown in repertoire and maturity in a beastly way after he broke into the freestyle world championships as a guest. His best trick, the Backflip Double Grab, executed with impeccable technique, and an almost perfect round in execution, except for the engine stalling before the last jump, were not enough to overcome his opponent Levi sherwood that he had grown very much knowing that a victory in this event was worth the lead in the general classification.

With these we would reach the final in which last year's winner would face Dany Torres and Levi Sherwood after the visit of Marc Márquez who took a few laps around the track on a Honda CRF 450 and gave us greetings to those present. Neither of them shone above and they had a display of tricks with a technique and total precision, either of them could take the victory and in the end it fell on the visitor's side Levi sherwood, who risked slightly more than Dany Torres probably due to the injuries he suffered earlier in the season. In this way, the podium would be made up of Levi Sherwood in the lead and two of us accompanying him, the first time this has happened. The award for best trick it would end up in the hands of the French Thom Pagés for his well deserved Special Flip.

Finally only two cinsiderations. The first is that in the years that I have been following FMX and attending Las Ventas, having grown up with Travis Pastrana, Nate Adams, Ronnie Renner, Robbie Maddison and André Villa among others, it seems as if their absence has advocated the evolution of FMX a few crazy things as the Tomm Pagés with your Special Flip and Takayuki Higashino, current winner of the gold medal in the X Games. And the second is that due to this monotony the best of the event were undoubtedly the guests to play the music, Zombie kids who messed it up before, during and after the contest.