Unfortunately for some, Willy Wonka does not offer a golden ticket into the X Games. For the moto wannabes of the world there are only 3 ways to get a berth in the hottest competition of the year.

First - you could be Travis Pastrana….or, Brian Deegan, or one of the 4 Gold medalists that are eligible for a straight shot through to the competition, 3 from the previous Summer and 1 from the previous Winter. Second - you compete on the Moto-X Championships tour and get yourself into the top 9 in the World Freestyle Association rankings to qualify.

Outside of the first 2 ways, you have to hope that you have played your game right throughout the previous year and are known and liked. Because you are now in the hunt for one of the 6 coveted Wild Cards in each of 3 disciplines.

This is where the whole scene takes on a cloak of mystery.

As the Executive Director of the WFA, I have the onerous task of finding 9 members of the WFA Wild Card committee. This task takes me to the quiet corners of the freestyle mx world where a tap on the shoulder adds another member to the 9-person team, a team that changes out a few members for every X Games.

Wild Card Committee members come from different areas of the Moto-X World and can include media, former riders, and other notables of the freestyle industry who simply "get it."

For reasons that should be painfully obvious the Committee must work behind closed doors. Due to the fact that undue pressure could be applied to any of the Committee members their identities are kept secret - even from each other. A little over the top? Maybe. But having seen the financial success that can come from an X Games medal, the opportunity for wrong doing always exists.

With the committee in place, and the qualifying season over, the voting process begins.

But not so fast. What about eligibility?

To be eligible for the Wild Card process a rider must have satisfied one of 3 conditions: Attended all of the qualifying events for that season, or, been injured during one or more qualifying events and unable to attend, or, be a foreign rider who is geographically challenged to attend the qualifiers.

For this year that left the door wide open for a lot of great riders who had suffered injuries early season and a whole host of foreigners who had just begun to figure out where America was. Add to this the fact that the Committee members were directed to choose at least one foreign rider in both Big Air and Freestyle (Dan Hall, Australia, and Benoit Milot, Canada, were already in Step Up) and you have a very crowded field.

On to voting:

Via email the votes are sent in with each Committee member voting for 6 riders. The riders are ranked 1 through 6 in each category. Riders voted 1 will get 6 points, 2 will get 5 points and so on. At the end of the voting process the 6 riders with the most points are awarded the Wild Cards. Its set up on Excel so I can't get it wrong.

Thanks go out to all of the members of the '02 Committee. It's a thankless task and one that can never really be openly rewarded. You will all see the fruits of their labor in Philly.