Kitimat’s Ben “The Giant Killer” Rego recently had the experience of a lifetime competing at the X Games 18 in Los Angeles last weekend. The X Games are the Olympics of extreme sports, and the pinnacle of any professional riders career.
Rego and two other British Columbia riders, Cory Graffunder of Vavenby and Bobby Prochnau of Savona, were Canada’s three lone representatives in Sunday’s EnduroCross event. The trio of BC boys were looking to represent the maple leaf proudly on Canada Day.
Rego finished 26 out of 30 drivers in seeding, with a time of 56.26 seconds. Rego then posted a DNF in round one of the competition. In the last chance qualifier Rego put on a solid performance finishing in eighth out of 24 riders in a time of 355.84 seconds. Unfortunately, Rego missed qualifying for the finals, with only the top ten moving on.
Graffunder had a fantastic performance, earning a bronze medal and finishing less than a second behind the silver medal winner. He finished in a time of 511.68, behind Americans Cody Webb and Mike Brown who took gold and silver in times of 510.88 and 506.25 respectively. Prochnau had a DNF in round one but placed fourth in the last chance qualifier, narrowly missing the final.
Rego snagged one of the eight open spots for riders to earn an invitation to X Games 18 s at the Sacramento round of the GEICO AMA EnduroCross Championship in mid June. He earned a wild card invitation as one of the top two non-qualified finishers would earn an invitation.
