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Seattle gets a clean slate as far as major cities go. It's world class,
as they say-picturesque (can't go wrong with the Space Needle),
boasts an active nightlife, and has unbelievable junk and thrift shop-
ping. A healthy skate scene abounds, with shops like Bike Factory
and the multi-faceted Fallout Records at the hub of activity. The skater
population in this other city of hills is definitely much larger than
the 4,000-plus who filled the auditorium.
It seems that great cities breed good contests. Except for slight
scorekeeping mishaps, the contest was rather enjoyable. Since the
only event of the weekend was vertical/ramp the crowd sat and yelled
for only five and a half hours before the winners were announced
on Saturday evening.
The only real stress developed between the security force and
the crowd during Social Distortion's power amped set after Friday
night's qualifying. A skater-fueled skank pit was working to a froth.
Pros with all-access wrist bands were bolting from the wings for
stagedives, breaking tackles by opposing security linemen. One thing
led to another and pretty soon one goon had a skater in a headlock.
Skaters went off on security and security got bloody lip.
"Is everyone having fun out there tonight?" shouted Social D's
Mike Ness. "Yeah!!!" cheered the crowd. Then the plug was pulled.
Saturday night's qualifying continued on a musically inspired note.
Steadham skated to Rush with clean backside air to Indy grabs.
Peanut Brown ruled inverts to Prince. Lucero worked ollie magic to
the Clash and the Avengers' "American
in Me." Grosso got nay-foot backside airs
to the Stones' "Monkey Man." Steve
Schneer went from ho-ho to crawdad and
frontside alley-ooped to Guns and Roses.
Fillion flew to basic Misfits, Demain got
Devo, Mike Smith backside ollied to hang
and went Ape Rock. Ken Park played to
Prince in Paris. Lance contrasted McTwists
and fast-to-fakies with Rod Stewart sing-
ing "Tonight I'm Yours." Hosoi put on a
burly display of power skating to Run DMC
and James Brown. Gonzales was way
stale with Bob Dylan. Salba had Bad
Brains cranked, Reategui skated to Social
D. Eric Nash served up roast beef grabs
to the Replacements" "Alex Chilton." Tony
Hawk preferred the Jam "In the City" for
his assaults. The most abused song of qualifying was Black Flag's
"Nervous Breakdown," which John Gibson, Al Losi and Micke Alba
aired while they got air. The most abused skater was Jeff Jones who
had the crowd booing the judges after low scores were posted. Jones,
Peanut Brown, Danny Webster, Tom Groholski, Jeff Grosso, Eric
Nash, Ben Schroeder, Chris Miller, Micke Alba and Tony Magnusson
went onto a 10-skater sub-jam while the top five-Ken Fillion, McGill,
Hosoi, Mountain and Hawk-rested until the final brawl. Missing in
action was Mark Rogowski and injured was Steve Caballero.
Perhaps taking the cue from Hawk's qualifying runs (or at least
the cassette), the final jam featured a musical score by The Jam.
Micke, Eric Nash, Jeff Grosso, Tony Magnusson and Chris Miller
had moved in to the top 10 but by the first chords of "All Mod Cons"
it was obvious that the power skating was being done by the top
three-Hosoi, Mountain and Hawk.
Opposite Page: Lance Mountain, full-fledged frontside invert. Inset: The kids
showed in force. Below: Micke Alba eyeballs his re-entry on the way to touchdown.
Bottom: Overview from the loge seats.
A summary of the final runs paints a clearer picture of who was
hot and who was not: Miller Bailed a huge air. Magnusson -
Shove-it 360° varial, lost the handle on a ho-ho.
Grosso - Big air, alley-oop bail. Nash-Lien method, manual roll-
out, but looking tired. Malba-Picked up the pace during "A-Bomb
on Wardour Street" with Indy nosepick on extension, no-handed
rock 'n roll shuffle, 180° roll out, big airs, sweepers, slides, quite
possibly the longest single run in pro contest history. Fillion-Slob
grab, two-step sweeper, eggplant, bailed a Stelmasky.
McGill-Fell on McTwist attempt, body-surfed a re-entry to rebate.
Hosoi - Walking on air, Christ had a flawless four-run jam continue
with rocket launches, anarchy Indy fully crossed up, layback air and
multiple slides. Mountain-Dropping in to the last refrain of "Down
in the Tube Station at Midnight," Lance powered a series of mind
bogglers. One foot air, alley-oops, eggs, McTwists off the extension,
lien to tail, frontside fast, alley-oop frontside, frontside invert to fakie.
Tony Hawk-Put the capper on a winning performance (even though
he had a bail during the jam) by performing flawless McTwists, Indy
gay twist, invert to fakie, shove-its and varials of every description
and finally the dizzy 720° spinner.
As it ended up, Tony Hawk spun his way to first place with his
continuing display of incredible board handling. Second place went
to Christian Hosoi and third to Lance Mountain, who was originally
announced as being second, but a protest by Hosoi pointed out that
a tie between the two skaters had been broken by going to the quali-
fying scores and not the final jam scores as was the NSA policy.
Both skaters were awarded second place prize money."
FINAL RESULTS
1. Tony Hawk $3,000
2. Christian Hosoi 2,000
7. Jeff Grosso
3. Lance Mountain
4. Micke Alba
5. Mike McGill
2,000 8. Eric Nash
1,000 9. Ken Fillion
750 10. Chris Miller
6. Tony Magnusson 500 11. Danny Webster
400 12. Ben Schroeder
325 13. Peanut Brown
275 14. Tom Gronolski
250 15. Jeff Jones
100
100
100
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