Petr Pilat's foam pit succumbs to Chuck Carothers and his Harley Davidson
November 30, 2009, 9:15 AM
By: Ryan Leyba
Martin Koren
This photo was taken seconds after Chuck escaped the pit.
On Thursday, the city of Prague was engulfed by smoke, burning to the ground just a mere two days before the tenth annual Gladiator Games was set to take place. Actually, the city's just fine and un-charred, but young FMX ripper Petr Pilat's foam pit is no longer with us. During Chuck Carothers' last day of perfecting his Harley Davidson flip into Pilat's foam pit, the Fire God decided to pay a visit, turning a simple spark between the bike and the foam into a full-blown raging fire.
I was set to post photos of the fire the same day, but as I was posting it a representative from Harley Davidson sat down next to me in the hotel lobby and asked me not to post anything until the jump was over. I don't really understand the reasoning for this, but I honored his request, but now we're cleared. Supposedly the Mayor of Prague, who's a big FMX fan, offered to re-build Pilat's foam pit. Pretty crazy, huh?
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Contributors
Ryan Leyba
Leyba is a bitter, retired FMX rider who likes to sit in his cubicle and call the professionals of the sport wussies for not pulling 360s and double backflips. He claims he quit riding FMX before flips were even invented ... yeah, right.
Cliff Talley
Making FMX videos exciting is easy. Making them look good is not. Cliff Talley does both of these well and still manages to find enough time to piss off his neighbors with his Travis Barker-esque drum skills.
Chris Tedesco
You've seen his photos on the covers of Transworld, Racer X and more. You've also seen his tequila shooting skills at your local dive bar. Ladies, Chris is single and looking to mingle.
Grant "Goba" O'Brien
FMX in Australia wouldn't exist if it weren't for Goba. Well, maybe it would, but it wouldn't be nearly as cool. I don't know why, but we can't quit calling him gobalobadingdong — it just rolls off the tongue.
Tes Sewell
Tes is the dude who's always involved in everything that's going on in FMX. How he does it, we don't know, but that's the reason we hired him to share his plethora of FMX wisdom in the form of a monthly column.
