I think what stood out most was not Brown's terrifying fall -- I've seen it enough times that I no longer cringe -- but the way the crowd went from pure elation after seeing him nail that first-ever 720 to dead silence after he hit the floor. The crowd's reaction was completely opposite of my other biggest X Games memory, when Travis Pastrana nailed that double back flip last year. In that case, the crowd was real quiet as he approached the ramp and shot into the air, then burst out with excitement when he landed it safely.

As much flak as ESPN gets from some of my fellow journalists who cover the X Games, they do put on a good show. Like Foust said after his victory today, "Somehow, they create a format that has these great finishes.''

A little luck seems to go a long way too.

I think I'll go have a cold one.

-- Dan Arritt

Still, the slew of spinouts he performed as a celebration made it seem like he had just won a crown. And the fan reaction -- about two-thirds of the seats were filled -- was in the same vein. Pastrana and Shaun White and Tony Hawk and now Jake Brown and a bunch of the other athletes (right, Jaime?) get props from the fans no matter what their official finish (White - 1st, Pastana - 3rd, Hawk - no scored events, Brown - 2nd). And that might be one of the best things about X Games. These guys who are the favorites have proved themselves, but they're respected no matter how they finish in a given event, so long as they try.

Based on the overall attendance, X Games 13 was a success. I think the concept of a split-stadium format could be taken away, but all-in-all it worked quite well. They certainly sold enough seats in Staples to merit the extra venue, and the plan is to keep events there next year, as well.

The crowd has cleared out fairly quickly since the end of the Rally Car races, and the spirit of X Games (rough, fun, fast, intense) is getting going. There are a couple of things we'll need to think about in the future:

1. Waste. X Games made a conscious effort this year to promote its "environmentality," but the amount of excess fuel used in these events will always make eco-friendly watchers cringe. In response, the X Games has set up clearly labeled compost (food, paper), recycling (cans, bottles) and trash (plates, utensils) bins. Last year, X Games reports, "12.71% of event waste was diverted from the landfill. This year, the "X Rider" program gave token rewards to those who carpooled with four riders or more. And the dirt used in Moto X will be reused, they say.

That's a good start, but long-distance transporting of 360 truckloads of soil can be worse for the environment than simply restoring the dirt to its initial place. One action that worries me more, however, is that the X Games will be planting "5,000 trees in California this year to assist with reforestation efforts following [the] devastating fires in the region." Many, if not most, environmentalists, however, would criticize that drive simply because, while wildfires can be human-caused, most are actually beneficial in restoring and revitalizing the ecosystem of struggling natural systems. For the same reason forest-thinning is controversial, so would be a plan to artificially exponent the growth of vulnerable forests.

2. EXPN.com. The Web site that runs all the information for the X Games is so far behind ESPN's flagship Web site that the two are hardly comparable. Part of the reason X Games doesn't get more coverage in newspapers nationally is because of the limited knowledge of the sports, the difficulty in analyzing the maneuvers pulled off by the athletes and comparing current performances to the past. In fact, a quick search of past X Games results shows that ESPN only has top-3 finishers for the first decade of the X Games or so. The media guide is barely 30 pages. Compare that with, say, college football, whose media guides the NCAA had to limit to about 200 pages a few years back because they were becoming to big (partly because they were becoming recruiting guides). Still, in the local paper in upstate New York and central Kansas and the panhandle of Florida, X Games typically gets reserved for the "briefs." That's not where it wants to be. Better access to print media would probably help ESPN draw more viewers who would then read about the events, but the biggest issue is information on the Web. If there were a one-stop-shop for action sports history like there were for, again, college football (College Football Data Warehouse), then X Games could draw some bigger TV numbers.

3. Injuries. This is where the events are only going to get worse. While the spectacular crashes can lead to a ratings bonanza (more than 2 million people have watched Jake Brown's fall on YouTube), it is also going to throw horror into the minds of fans and could lead to the dreaded government investigations. (Remember, there was a time when Teddy Roosevelt's administration was all but ready to demand the end of football when more than a dozen players died in a year. The result, which has been ruining college sports since 1906, was the NCAA. The organization was known as the IAAUS until 1910.) Hopefully, we don't see a life-long injury or a death out here at the X Games, but I'm not optimistic. The ramps here are the biggest ones of the year. About 25% higher ramps in the park events and a mega-ramp with the sports' most prestigious medals on the line are combinations for disaster. We nearly saw one with Brown's fall.

But the summer X Games are still in a good place. Unlike winter X, which still struggles mightily to attract advertisers, according to this internal ESPN memo, provided by Deadspin:

We have an ongoing communication among marketing, production and programming designed to ensure that when we have lower demand we give advertising inventory to promotion. Winter X Games being a prime example of that process in action.

Hopefully, X Games can evolve and mature at a gradual pace and become a staple of the sports scene. It would be good for everyone. (And, hopefully we might see the day when parking-price gouging is abandoned because ESPN and AEG realize that their practices simply aren't right.)

But this week, it was positive. It was good. And it's a very, very nice sign to see that X Games haven't peaked. Because if it had, ESPN's decade-and-a-half investment in action sports -- a good thing in itself -- inevitably would have gone to waste.

But, thankfully, that's not the case.

-- Ken Fowler

Da Yankees Win. DAAA YANKEEEEEES WIN!

Actually, Chrissie Beavis and Tanner Foust won. The Yankees may have won also, but I don't know. However, I do know that the best stories from the Rally Car race came from the second and third place finishers.

Travis Pastrana and Christian Edstrom, who got the bronze, lost to Beavis and Foust in the semis. Well, they were disqualified, actually.

Pastrana and Edstrom sold out on the final turn and when they came to the finish line they were unable to fully control their car and went into Beavis and Foust's lane to reach the finish line first. I didn't here an official word, but I'm sure they were DQ'd because they crossed over to the other lane.

In the quarterfinals, Ken Block and Alessandro Gelsomino, the silver medalists, finished the race without one of their front tires. Block and Gelsomino lost their tire on the final lap when they hit a barrier. They could have stopped right there since the other car had also gotten into an accident and was no longer moving, but they came back into the stadium (minus their front tire) and crossed the finished line with three tires and one very wasted rim.

It was an unbelievable site, to say the least. One of my top five moments of these X Games.

So, with that, here are my Five Best Moments of XG XIII.

5- Daniel Dhers. Dhers won the BMX street park final, but that's not the reason he's No. 5. the No. 5 moment was the long walk I shared with him and his family to the media center (read previous blog on subject).

4- Bob Burnquist, immediately after Jake Brown's injury, doing the jump of his life to win the Skateboard big air gold medal. Burnquist pushed aside all kinds of thoughts and landed a no-handed 360 across a 70-foot gap, into a 19-foot 6-inch McTwist above the 27-foot quarterpipe to score a 95.33 and win the gold. Clutch.

3- Chris Cole's double 360 kickflip to win the Skateboard best trick event. Cole was trying to land that trick the entire competition. At the halfway point of the event no one had done anything special and I turned to Dan Arritt and said, "if Cole lands that trick he's going to win it." And with about two minutes left he landed it. Perseverance.

2- Block and Gelsomino driving into the stadium without one of their tires. The crowd got up and cheered them on, I got up and raised my arms as if to say, what else is going to happen at the X Games.

1- Jake Brown's horrifying crash on the mega-ramp. Even though he didn't win the gold medal, Jake Brown is the standout star athlete of these X Games. And his crash is the standout moment.

Feel free to share your Top 5. In fact, I encourage you to do so.

Anyways, it's been real.

-- Jaime Cárdenas

Actually, I'm not sure if there testing goes on at the X Games or not. I was just sitting here in the press box thinking about how I get to go back to cover "normal" sports now that the X Games are over. You know, the ones that are tainted by claims of steroid use, alleged gambling scandals and dogfighting.

Other than the fact that today I had to pay $40 for parking, the X Games have been a breath of fresh air ... or puff of marijuana.

-- Jaime Cárdenas

And based on what our esteemed colleague Grahame Jones wrote in today's paper, you wonder if David Beckham won't delay his home debut so as not to risk injuring his ankle on what could be very loose new sod. Jaime thinks it's inevitable that Beckham won't play in the SuperLiga match here on August 15, but I'm thinking he will.

-- Ken Fowler

I don't even consider golfers, NASCAR drivers or hot-dog eating competitors athletes, so how was I going to look at these guys as athletes?

Well, I should have. These guys are athletes. And the fact that an Olympic athlete (in snowboarding, but an Olympic athlete nonetheless), just won gold medal at the X Games proves it. I'm sorry for ever doubting them.

I talked to members of the media, fans, X Games athletes and non X Games athletes. Here is a small sampling of some of the best responses I got.

Skateboarder Chris Cole, who is consistently training when on tour and practices three or four days of the week when he is not, probably had the best answer: "Yeah, we're athletes. I don't think a fat person could do what we do, so yeah, we're athletes."

Sacha Kljestan, soccer player on Chivas USA, said: "To do skating or biking or stuff like that you have to be pretty athletic, so I think they are athletes. I don't think they are far below, but they are not up high like basketball athletes or football players."

Scott Bair, action sports columnist for the North County Times (daily newspaper in San Diego County): "It's not just the level of risk, it's just anytime that you get thrown up 30 feet in the air and then pull a motorcycle back under you ... probably takes some strength and flexibility and athleticism to get all that stuff done. So athletes, no doubt."

Tony Hawk, skateboarding legend: "I don’t really care. They can call us artists, athletes, outcasts, whatever, I’ve heard it all. As long we get to do this for a living, it doesn’t matter to me what you call us.”

-- Jaime Cárdenas

White did back-to-back front rodeo flips to top PLG on his final run to win the gold.

"I'm just so happy, I can't even talk," he told a camera crew after winning.

Neither can I. An Olympic medalist is now an X Games medalist ... think about that one for a second.

-- Jaime Cárdenas

It was eight years ago that Hawk crossed over into mainstream media when he landed the first ever 900-degree spin on a vert ramp during the X Games in 1999. I can't believe it was that long ago. I could have sworn that was three or four years ago. And apparently neither could Tony when I reminded him it was eight years ago.

"No," I can't believe it was that long, and it's still hard" to do.

Everyone knows Tony Hawk, even a lot non-skating people know who Tony Hawk is, but not everyone at the X Games (especially not the 10 or 12 year olds, I think) know who Mike McGill, Christian Hosoi, Duane Peters or even Caballero are or were.

"I think it's important for them too see the history and see the progression of how far it's gone, especially (because) right after we skate the absolutely newest best guys come and skate. And they see how much the level has been raised, but also were the influences where. I think it's important for kids to understand that and appreciate it."

I agree.

-- Jaime Cárdenas

On the bright side, there's currently a man or woman wearing a zebra suit as homage to one of the riders -- a mascot, if you will.  If it weren't 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky, I'd be tempted to see if I could play zebra. Not today.

-- Ken Fowler