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World Championships, Sierra Nevada Spain 2000. Chris started to wear kneepads! This was big news in the sport at the time! But also notice the big meat up front, 2.7 Intense tire and prototype Dorado. Intense tire development had been going on for over a year, Steber had been trying to put stealth shoe rubber ONTO the tires, but they were constantly having problems getting the rubber to vulcanize. Rubber was peeling off, it was heavy and was SO sticky, that it was too slow-rolling. Jeff moved into creating their own 'sticky rubber' for the Intense tire line. The first prototypes were done just in time for Worlds. Jeff drove to the airport the day before the race to get the samples. Kovarik would run 2.7's and they were just too big of a tire, resulting in a 10th place finish, 5 seconds off winner, Myles Rockwell. Kovarik's Intense team mate, Michael Ronning, was 15th on the same-equipped Intense M1.