CHECK IT OUT, BRO-RALLYING! A sensational X Games intro gives the sport of dirt kings another chance at fame.(Motorsports)(X games rally competition)(Event overview)

Byline: Mark Vaughn

In this age of skepticism and World Wrestling Entertainment-style staged drama, it is hard to believe the whole finish hadn't been written months before, tuned and tweaked by script doctors for just the right amount of thrill at exactly the right moment-just before the commercial break in the live national telecast.

Consider the scenario: Aging veteran WRC champ Colin McRae entered the final Super stage of the first X Games rally competition a scant half-second ahead of chipper, grinning, motocross, supercross and freestyle legend and boy wonder Travis Pastrana.

The 22-year-old Pastrana had just completed his lap of the 0.75-mile stadium-and-parking-lot course of the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, which put him in the lead. McRae, the day's final competitor, had only to edge Pastrana by a half-second to take the first gold medal the X Games had ever awarded for rallying-the first such medal that involved something with four wheels that wasn't a skateboard.

McRae launched down the 150-foot stadium dirt ramp at the northwest corner of the arena, a ramp that would have made Mickey Thompson proud, flew over the first jump and snaked through the course, exiting the stadium a full second ahead of Pastrana's split time. Through the parking- lot drift sections he lost a bit and was reportedly behind at halfway. So on his second descent down the ramp into the rallying mosh pit and up that first jump, McRae figured he would save big time by landing just sideways enough to tighten the immediate right-hand turn after the ramp.

Instead, as the clock ticked the numbers flipped, and approximately 40,000 fans went nuts. McRae cut the wheel just a little too sharp, landed just a little too sideways and rolled instead. And kept rolling, all the way over and back up on the wheels. A lesser driver would have panicked and stalled, but you could hear McRae keep the throttle blipping even as he was going over, so when he landed upright the wheels were already spinning and he was off, through the last few turns and...

McRae was less than a second short of the gold. Pastrana won. Pandemonium, which is the usual reaction at an X Games event, ensued.