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HAIDEN DEEGAN
IMAGES / ANDY CAVAZOS
With the date being June 22nd, Haiden Deegan can now say he knows what the first twelve days after pulling your first backflip to dirt
on an mx-bike are like. That’s right, folks, if you haven’t seen it yet, this seven-year-old has already outdone most mx racers by pulling one of the still insanely unique flip-tricks that FMX riders around the world continue to execute. It’s jaw-dropping and gravity-defying but this kid did it with less than two weeks to go before Mammoth. With it now behind him, Haiden himself said he’s focused on racing rather than the Freestyle lifestyle his father helped form as it’s not even of interest to the young “danger boy”. While it may be hard to believe that’s the last trick we see little Deegan pull, lets take a closer look at how the young racer stacked up to the field over the past few days.
Being a young gun, Haiden enlisted himself, as a member of the Metal Mulisha, in the 65cc 7-9 and Open divisions. Starting off day one with heat one in the 7-9 class, danger boy rocketed out to the top spot early and never looked back on the way to his first moto win of
the weekend. For moto two, it was more of the same for young Deegan, bolting out front ahead of Jordan Torres from the drop of the gate and sailing to his second victory of the day. Torres put on a late-race charge but Deegan had too much momentum to let anyone
by. Heading into the bigger of the two classes, the Open class, Deegan had his work cut out for him as he was now riding with kids two to three years older. That didn’t matter, though, as danger boy again jumped off the gate fiercely and hopped into second behind Hunter Yoder. For the first three laps, the top two stayed relatively close together but Yoder proved to be too strong for Haiden, pulling out the victory ahead of the 2nd place Deegan. As if on replay, the two riders came back for moto two, both chasing the ghosts of moto one. As a result, both riders were able to take over the same top two spots respectively and both rode nearly identical races with Deegan just being edged out of 1st by the unstoppable Yoder. With a 1-1 and 2-2 moto scores for day one, Deegan was one of the more consistent riders on the track and looked to perpetuate the power for day two.
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MPG DIGITAL / JUNE 2016
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