Jamie Bestwick © 2006 Lat34

Who's Gonna Win? Dew the Math

Status Quo? Time to Go.

Action sports events and individual athletes have historically been judged in an all-or-nothing format. In a typical contest, riders take two runs; only the highest scoring run stands for the competition. First, second, and third place take the prizes, and everybody else gets bupkis. When the event is over, the results reset and everybody starts from scratch at the next one.

On this front, the Dew Action Sports Tour is changing everything. Cumulative points are awarded for everything from first place (100 points) all the way down to 35th place (one point) and are tracked over the course of the tour to determine overall standings in the contest for the Dew Cup, a new Toyota , and the biggest prize purse in the history of action sports. (For a full breakdown of the Dew Tour points system, click here).

As the athletes ride into San Jose for the Toyota Challenge this week for the fourth of five stops on the Dew Tour, they have more than just this individual contest on their minds. The guys with their eyes on the big prize are breaking out their calculators, plotting their endgame, and strategizing their way to a drink from the Dew Cup next month in Orlando .

Skatermetrics 101

Under the Dew Tour’s overall points system, it’s no longer enough just to win: returning Skate Vert champ Bucky Lasek is currently in first place overall without having won a single event on this year’s tour (he placed 2nd in Louisville, 3rd in Denver, and 2nd in Portland , for a current total of 213 points). Sandro Dias, Bob Burnquist, and Shaun White have each won individual events, but have placed low enough in other tour stops to bump them down the list. In other words, their ability to win events every once in a while is no longer a great measure of their objective value as skaters, or as a predictor of overall success. 

The Dew Tour adds a new element of longitudinal data collection, opening action sports to the kinds of objective questions that have blown open the fields of baseball studies and sports analysis, leading to organizations like the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and the concept of “sabermetrics,” a systematic means for analyzing baseball through objective evidence.

Sabermetricians look at performance statistics and ask questions like “How valuable is a player with a solid batting average?” In the burgeoning field of skatermetrics, we might ask, “How much value is there in an individual skater’s ability to do a 720, a 900, or even a 1080?” Over a series of events like the Dew Tour, the answer, surprisingly, could very well be: “Not much.” 

Shaun White, currently in 5th place overall, best embodies the all-or-nothing approach, and its shortfalls: He finished dead last in a field of 20 in Louisville (12 points), and 6th in Portland (46 points), so his Denver win (100 points), otherwise impressive on its own, doesn’t help him much yet in the overall contest. His X Games Best Trick experience is illustrative: He spent the entire allotted time trying a flashy 1080, and was left with nothing. With that kind of strategy, he might as well replace his signature “Back in Black” AC/DC soundtrack with The Clash’s  “Death or Glory.” 

Meanwhile, skaters like Jean Postec (currently in 6th place, just 9 points shy of media darling Shaun White) are sneaking in under the radar. By skating consistently and steadily improving over the course of the season (8th place in Louisville, 6th place in Denver, and 3th place in Portland), Postec has risen from French obscurity in just one summer: If he continues his upward climb, our Orlando headline could very well read “Slow and Steady Wins the Race.”

Postec’s quiet rise may prove to be the most interesting story on the Dew Tour: Skatermetrics makes way for subtlety, a word not often associated with skateboarding or action sports, and changes the way individual performance is valued. Then again, Postec could throw subtlety out the window and start gambling with the all-or-nothing crowd by putting his switch 900 into some runs.

Story Time

In FMX, the math is less complicated: Travis Pastrana and Nate Adams have each won 1st or 2nd in every event, attaining undeniable objective value, especially now that many of their likely competitors are sidelined with injuries. The storyline here will come down to a good old-fashioned showdown, and there won’t be room in San Jose or Orlando for the both of them. Smart money is on Pastrana, but in FMX anything can happen.

In BMX Vert, Jamie Bestwick is enjoying rarified air at the top, with Kevin Robinson and Chad Kagy chasing at his heels and duking it out with each other. Daniel Dhers, Ryan Nyquist, and Scotty Cranmer have each won one event in BMX Park , and the plot will thicken in San Jose this week. The BMX Dirt riders are all over the place – aren’t they always? – and the top prize could go to any of the guys currently in the top five: Anthony Napolitan, Luke Parslow, Ryan Nyquist, Cameron White, or Corey Bohan.

Over in the Skate Park, the story is all about the young guns: returning champ Ryan Sheckler is out in front with wins in Louisville and Portland, but his 4th place finish in Denver left room for Jereme Rogers (3rd in Louisville, 1st in Denver, 2nd in Portland) to play catch up. 11 year-old Nyjah Huston hasn’t had a big win yet, but he’s hanging in tight – with 2nd place finishes in Louisville and Denver, and a 4th place finish in Portland – and could easily end up on top even without an all-out win. Everybody else in the field has a lot of catching up to do.

It’s unlikely that any athlete will pull a Sheckler this year (he sealed up the overall title last year in San Jose before the tour even made it to Orlando), but San Jose will be the pivotal stop on the tour, and every event will be worth watching. Stay tuned to Lat34.com for complete updates, expanded coverage, and future math lessons.

– Colin Bane

FOLLOW THE ACTION: DEW TOUR SAN JOSE Articles: - Aussies Dominate BMX Prelims - Jean Postec Coming on Strong Photo Galleries: - BMX Dirt Prelims - BMX Vert Prelims