2 days and 2 seconds
it's festivus time! i mean festival time. the world ski and snowboard festival in whistler is on again. and that means a few more spring comps in the form of Monster's "The Show"
I wasn't really feeling the need to ride moguls this year (there's been a lot of powder) so i skipped the first event and went in for the boarderstyle and halfpipe comps.
Boarderstyle consisted of a very short (and really easy) boardecross track, but with a park jump at the bottom and involved mandatory spinning. I put in a good qualifying time and was the top seed through all my heats and also was going in the first heat.
I hadn't raced BX in a very long time and it was pretty fun to be in the start gate waiting for it to drop. some riders were about ready to pass out from nervousness. The gate dropped and it was on. Being such a short course there wasn't much passing going on, but your spin on the last kicker really counted. if you came in third a good spin could put you into the next round. I was going to try to avoid being bumped by that method. So as we came around the final gate, i was in the lead and gave a quick check back to see where everyone else was. Little bit of a lead, sweet, so i flipped around and went switch into the last jump with a cab 540. The next round was a little tighter and i went cab 720 while in the lead, jon versteeg went back 900 and will jackways went frontside 540 right behind us (snowboard canada jon scarth's photo of this action is below)
The finals were jon, travis williams, yan devo (he'd bumped his way through with a cab 540 on the oakley O) and myself. The prize money was winner take all, and all of us having had a fun day, agreed to split the cash prior to the final run.
Travis and i were grappling right out of the gates. boards hitting, grabbing each other and jon managed to grab the lead. Close to the final corner jon lost his edge a little bit and both travis and i tried to pass on opposite sides on the outside lanes. unfortunately the outside lanes were slower. I was just able to get about even with jon and travis got squeezed out of the course. Jon boosted anothe back 900 for the win and me right behind with another cab 720.
there's a couple good posts up with some cool photos to check from the event..
http://www.snowboardcanada.com/news_article?news_id=1715
and
http://www.push.ca/blogs/snownews/archive/2011/04/19/the-show-day-three-...
the next day was the halfpipe 'contest'. It's not really a contest, but it is, and it's not really about the pipe, but it takes place in the pipe. This year there was a bell hanging above the lip to smash and a log positioned on the other side. With the pipe being good finally, i was pretty happy just to ride pipe. But to do well in this 'contest' you need to play by their rules, which aren't much, but they want to see you hit the rails and stuff. So i tried to get the bell with some air to fakies. i tried a bunch of times, and i missed the damn bell by centimeters a bunch of times. getting bored of missing repeatedly, i went for a few pipe runs. then over to the log. I thought a frontside alley oop 360 with some log action mid way through would be cool. however after a few triesi only kinda got it once, and then the nice pipe took my attention again and i went back to doing whatever runs popped into my head. I ended up in second place for the day. Guillaume morrissete took first and brad martin took second. I think guillaume's alley oop bell ringer got the prize for him. it was pretty sick.
snowboard canada and push write ups are here...
http://www.snowboardcanada.com/news_article?news_id=1716
and
http://www.push.ca/blogs/snownews/archive/2011/04/20/the-show-day-four-d...
couple really fun days on the hill, and now we've got a few nights of festival-ing ahead of us. Going to watch the intersection movies tonight and then the pro photo showdown tomorrow night, which is the hottest ticket in town and always an awesome show.
then I'm off to try and get these little lines with the splitboard...
