Thursday, January 28's practices proved a bit frustrating at first and seemed to expose a few pretty big chinks in the Moore armor. For starters, neither brother had ever competed in a sled freestyle competition, and the multitude of hits and varying distances between launches and landings made things a bit more difficult than the straight line, fixed-distance FMX demo ramp setups they were accustomed to. Second, there was a bit of a confinement issue; the tight confines of the course and little amount of allotted time per run made it necessary to charge through the tight course to get a decent amount of tricks in before your time was up. Therein lay the problem. Charging meant attacking corners, and while the whopping six weeks of snowmobile experience had proven to be enough time to learn complicated trick combos, it wasn't enough time to develop a solid skill set that included turning with any real measure of precision or accuracy. Both brothers seemed to struggle equally, but by the end of day one, their "point and shoot" style and arsenal of tricks had silenced any skeptics. Even if they couldn't turn very quickly, they were deemed a huge threat for medals.
Friday morning's practices were hampered by thick fog; the low visibility literally meant you couldn't see the landings from the face of the launches. With one more day of sled experience under their belts, both brothers seemed eager to throw down regardless of the fact that you could barely see them from the ground. As the day wore on, the conditions got better, and so did the Texas duo. By the end of their second session, the tricks were clicking, the turns were looking better, and the reality of competing and being in medal contention seemed to set in. Lunch was spent strategizing runs and feeding off of each other's confidence. "Dude, you've got that" was heard more than once, and the creative energy seemed to flow. What the entire Moore family seemed to get more than most was that Caleb and Colten had the situation under control. A sense of calm resonated in their pit area, and outside of relaxing, there was no other priority. You would never know that they were quietly preparing to carry the entire sport of ATV freestyle into the limelight while simultaneously kicking snowmobile freestyle's progression level up a notch.
The freestyle rounds were contested under the lights on prime time TV with a mountain full of spectators in attendance. The "Texas boys" theme seemed to strike a chord with the announcing team as both on site and on TV the Moore brothers' story was stealing the show. More impressive was the fact that they were throwing down tricks that had never been done on snowmobiles. Each run by either brother had the crowd cheering and competition in awe. "There's no way they just started riding those things" echoed from spectators and competitors alike. Colten's initial run had people literally shaking their heads. To call it impressive wouldn't really do it justice, whereas trying to describe it would simply be an injustice. The level of commitment and innovation on display instantly won over anyone who had held out on becoming a fan. "Just imagine what they'll be doing next year" was another commonly heard quote in the pits, and that was before the brothers really even got started. Caleb's run was good enough to earn him the top score heading into the finals thanks in part to a "Body Varial" (previously unheard of on a snowmobile) and the "Flying Squirrel" which he'd invented on the spot. Despite younger brother Colten's impressive initial run, the nerves seemed to cost him a shot at the finals.