Tomorrow is D-Day … That’s Day One of X Games 15 here in Los Angeles. It’s my first X Games as a local, which means after all the craziness each day, I get to come home and sleep in my own bed. (But it also means I don’t get to sleep at the Viceroy, which was secretly my favorite reason for coming to LaLa Land every August.)

If you haven’t checked out our X Games preview issue of ESPN The Mag, spend some time before tomorrow night with the online version. And check out my updates on the pieces I did with Tony Hawk/Alex Perelson and Travis Pastrana. The trick Pastrana has planned for Friday night’s FMX Best Trick contest, called the Toilet Paper (TP) Roll, is so technically difficult, he says he warms up with double backflips. If he lands wheels-first, this trick is not something you will want to miss. That goes for the entire contest. This Best Trick event has the potential to be the most exciting, and most frightening, contest the sport has seen in 10 years of X Games competition. Two front flips … another Kyle Loza surprise … Scott Murray’s double backflip … a backflip body vairal … and a rodeo 720 (the TP Roll). Two years ago, any one of these tricks would have won Best Trick, hands down. Friday night, three of these guys won’t make the podium.

Speaking of Pastrana, last night at the Avalon downtown, Red Bull hosted a “toast” of the FMX supastar, called Red Bull Toasted. Think: part celebration, part roast, total fun. TP’s BFFs and family flew to LA to have a little fun at his expense. The ironic part about the evening was that the roasters—Tony Hawk, Ryan Sheckler, Carey Hart, Sal Masekala, Jolene Van Vugt, Andy Bell, TP’s mom and dad—didn’t have much to dog Pastrana about. You can only make so many jokes about someone being a nice guy with a death wish and the mentality (and game with the ladies) of a 13-year-old. So they ended up roasting each other waaaay more than they roasted TP, who got away much more easily than Sheckler and Hawk.

AFTER THE ROAST, TP TALKED ABOUT HIS RETURN TO BEST TRICK …