skaters and spectators. It was pretty bleak.
The cut was judged fairly and no one cried
about their placing.
Saturday night was filled with frolic. Every-
one gathered at a house with a ramp in the
front yard. One guy did ollle flips-to-dark
side-to-axle stall in the black of the night.
Chris Ortiz played hide-and-seek with Cara-
Beth Burnside due to stolen beverages.
Sunday brought beautiful weather for an
outdoor contest, but this was an indoor
contest. This was probably the most
Impressive skating of the weekend. Skaters
worked the staircase of ramps, slid around
the bowl, then over the spine and climbed
back up the stairs to the largest portion of the
mini-ramp during their runs.
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Contest highlights include Alfonzo's
McTwist on the extended vert wall. Chris
Gentry flowing strongly all over the ramp.
Tom Knox riding hard and fast, destroying
everything in his path, Chad Vogt busting
bizarre variations of pivots and a couple of
towering Sal flips, and Wade Speyer setting
the ramp on fire with stand-up frontside axle
grinds downstream, ollie nose blunts and a
backside hip transfer-to-feeble grind on the
spine. Eric Dressen hasn't been seen much
lately, but after watching him, you know he
has been skating a lot. He flowed all over the
ramp without effort. The contest was basically was monumental.
between three guys. Omar was one of them.
His consistent skating pushed him into third
place with face-high frontside airs off the
Bo
extended wall to Smith grind, alley-oop
frontside ollies and 5-0s-to-fakie through the
comer. Christian Hosol is hotter than ever. He
milked the ramp with tail grab nose grinds,
backside disaster reverts, nose blunt tail grab
disasters and big backside hip transfers. His
tail grab nose bonk on the extended vert wall
Danny Way has pushed the sport down a
new avenue with his vast repertoire of tricks.
Although he is young and has a brash temper.
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you can't knock Danny for his abilities. He
yanked tail grab nose stall reverts on the
vertical extension, flowed into 360° varials,
tossed an ollie blunt-to-tail grab nose slap-to-
revert, contorqued a frontside ollie blunt 180
over the spine and twirled a varial mute grab
over the big hip. Even though he displayed
his mega-angst by smashing two of his three
decks after his runs, Danny knew the day was
his and he had given the ramp his best shot.
The judges gave the victory to Danny Way.
After the checks were
handed out, Chris Ortiz
received the coveted "à la
mode" award from a
vengeful Cara-Beth
Burnside. As Chris
Markovich and Omar
Hassan burned the clutch of Rocco's
Porsche in the parking lot, someone finally
asked, "Why the heck did we come to
Langley, British Columbia, anyway?"
Clockwise from top: The locals demon-
strate a few lines at China Creek. Aiming
for disaster, Sam Devlin sets one down at
China Creek's keyhole. The gang pulls a
train through the curvaceous contours of
North Van's snake run.