May 14, 2005

© Skate Scene Media

Click on a photo for a larger photo

On Friday night before the contest we went to Las Vegas to see The Adolescents and The Hunns play at The Roadhouse Casino. Right after the show we sucked down a bunch of energy drinks and headed back to Orange County. Getting back in about 5am we got a little shut eye before heading to the contest.

With the help of 2 Rockstar energy drinks we were awake again and on the road to Orange. This was the first major contest that has ever been held at the VANS skate park in Orange, California. This contest had a whopping $85,000 purse which is a decent chunk of change for a contest.


Buddy Carr

Swellbow

Scott Taylor

Jim Murphy

First event of the day was the Media Concrete Challenge. This is where full time employee from various skate media outlets would compete against each other. The cool thing about this is that these are all the same people you would be skating with at any given skatepark around the country. Everyone of the skaters in this division can throw down hard and it really did not seem like a contest because all of these dudes skate this hard all the time.

After a brief intermission and warm up, the ladies took over the bowl. With more and more parks opening up with pools in them, it is not a surprise that there  are more ladies getting into this segment of skating. A real positive for the future of ladies skateboarding is the various ages brackets that are represented at an event like this. The photos here speak for them self, the ladies can hold their own anywhere, anytime.


Kim Peterson

Lyn-Z

Jenn O'Brien

Amanda Eschemann

                                                         


Honoring The Hoffmans

Dave Duncan

Stan Hoffman

Something that was really cool that went down as part of the event was to give honor and respect to Stan and Jeanne Hoffman who owned the Pipeline skatepark in Upland California, the site of the original Combi Bowl. Stan was presented with a plaque that recognized their contribution to the replica Combi as well as their overall contributions to skateboarding.


Salba

Mike Smith

Marty "Jinx"

Jeff Grosso

After the presentation to Stan Hoffman it was now time to run the Masters division. The entire contest was like watching an old Bones Brigade video live. The skating styles that were being represented were very unique to each skater and all of them could win on any given day. No matter what tricks the spectators liked to see, they saw them all from the stiff arm inverts by Lance Mountain to the blasting airs of Kevin Staab to the stylish style of Mike Smith's Laybacks to the full charging board slides of Jeff Grosso, it was all there...and more. How any of this could be judged to determine the overall winner is insane, but before the contest the buzz in the air was all about Chris Miller who was the favorite to take it all...and he did!


Don Hamilton

Chris Miller

Lance Mountain

Kevin Staab

We got back just in time after we took a short refreshment break over at Alcatraz Brewery. The pro event was now underway. All the guys in this division are at the top of their game and then there are a handful that are just just a smidgen better. There was lots of gnarly tricks being put down, some near miss collisions as the crowd cheered demanding another shot of adrenaline filled skating.

The interesting thing that was noticed about this younger generation of pro skaters is that no one did a single invert while opting for the vert style tricks performed on pool coping. At times it seemed like there was a swapping of a first place win amongst the top 10 guys.


Rune Glifberg

Brian Patch

Omar Hassan

Mike Smith and a big check

Once the contest was over there was a bit of a break till all the scores were tallied up. Masters division participant Mike Smith won $5000 from Tylenol for taking some good slams and still coming back for more. Props gotta go out to Tylenol for their participation in their event. Their participation was very low key and we think that most skaters appreciated that. Anytime you take a good slam Tylenol is still the product of choice, so their involvement was very appropriate in an event like this.


Fletcher from Pennywise

Scott Taylor for media

Ladies Top 3

Masters Top 3

Pro Top 3

The event was a total success in our eyes and it is our hope that when the video portion of this event is aired in 2 months that it will build contest like this into a regular event not just in Orange, yet all over the place. As we said when we started this report, this event left us spinning and it is hard to put into words what we experienced, hopefully the marginal photos that are part of this story will help you put you own interpretation on how bitchen this event was.

     Media     
1. Scott Taylor - Skateboarder Magazine
2. Dave Swift - The Skateboard Mag
3. Buddy Carr - Concrete Wave Magazine
4. Jim Murphy - Juice Magazine
5. Roger Harrel – Skateboarder Magazine

     Masters:     
1. Chris Miller - $10,000
2. Jeff Grosso - $6,000
3. Lance Mountain - $4,000
4. Steve Alba - $1000
5. Pat Ngoho - $1000
6. Ben Schroeder - $200
7. Tony Magnusson - $200
8. Kevin Staab - $200
9. Eddie Reategui - $200
10. Mike Smith – $200

     Women:     
1. Cara-Beth Burnside - $2,500
2. Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins - $1,300
3. Mimi Knoop - $700
4. Apryl Woodcock
5. Holly Lyons
6. Amanda Eschemann
7. Nicole Zuck
8. Kim Peterson
9. Jessica Starkweather
10. Jen Obrien

     Pros:     
1. Rune Glifberg - $25,000
2. Omar Hassan - $15,000
3. Brian Patch - $8,000
4. Benji Galloway - $4,000
5. Bucky Lasek - $2,000
6. Jimmy the Greek - $1,500
7. Lincoln Ueda - $1000
8. Bruno Passos - $700
9. Tony Trujillo - $500
10. Jake Piaseki – $300

Win some cool stuff .... Click Here