2024 Vurbmoto Yamaha Edit Contest Banger Category Winner Announced

I should never have to edit again in my life. I seriously wrote that note while doing our third round of judging for the Banger portion of the Vurbmoto Yamaha Editing Contest. For real, I personally wouldn’t have even gotten in the top 15 for this category, and that’s being very nice to myself, to say the least. Okay, I’ll level… even making the top 24 finalists would’ve been tough for me. THIS WAS SERIOUSLY INSANE. 

I never in my wildest dreams could’ve anticipated having this level of talent enter this competition. Every edit in the top 15 had the juice to win, and we ended up adding even more categories to separate the judging criteria to make it as fair as possible. Legitimately, there’s six edits here that could go straight to a television ad slot. The bar you all set was unimaginable.

While many people went HAM in after effects, we tried to be real to the edit game. Having AE as part of your skillset is invaluable, and it did help out in the scoring when used with the right balance, but there were plenty of less “flashy” edits that still really stood out to us. While UNREAL in most cases, some edits leaned into VFX a little too hard, and we wanted to make sure that didn’t sway our minds when it came to the baseline of this whole thing – editing. Making sure to utilize the right mix of footage, with the right pacing, with the right sound, the right color, to create the perfect amount of stoke in our brains. Again, this was insanity, and stand alone each and every single one of these edits are mind blowing… but this was basically the 2024 450 class of video editing. To continue the analogy, any one of you could win on any given weekend. I hope you all can imagine how extremely tough this made it on us.

That being said, congratulations to you all. Taking the time and effort to do all of this is impressive enough, and then to do such an amazing job is just the cherry on top. I’ve said multiple times on the podcast. “Winning is cool and all, but getting noticed is the true objective of this contest.” And, point blank, you have ALL been noticed. Whether it’s us, Yamaha, Motosport, Winners Take Y’all, or one of the thousands of companies in motorsports that need multimedia — and specifically editing — help, we now have a list of the most talented people we never knew existed. Point is, I’m hoping every single one of you take a win out of this. It seriously could mean a full-time job of your dreams, regardless of your finish.

For clarity, our panel of judges consisted of many full-time professionals, including editors, colorists, story producers, post-pro sound, and camera ops. This led us to a wide array of scores, and ultimately made this even more exciting. However, it also made it even damn harder. If you landed in the top 25, just know your edit was watched SO MANY TIMES by our entire team during our Yamaha Edit Contest watch parties. We did not take this lightly, and wanted to make sure we took the time and effort to do this correctly, and give each edit the recognition it deserved. 

Time for me to shut up. Without further ado, here are the top finishers for the 2024 Yamaha Vurbmoto Edit Contest: Banger Category. 

Oh, by the way, special congratulations to David McDonald. Not only did he win the Banger Category, he finished second in the Storytelling Category. Unreal!

Winner | David McDonald

2nd | Evan Holte

3rd | Cameron Burns

4th | SwerdMX

5th | Jacob Langmade

Other Finishers

6th | Joshua Knight

7th | Jeff Poshkus

8th | Ethan Hester

9th | Kyle Bowers

10th | Taylor Lee

11th | Ty Hageman

12th | Ethan Peebles

Honorable Mention

Joseph Pilsner was the only one to get 11’s across the board in the creative category with his exclusive usage of the Dad Cam. We were blown away. Great job, dude.