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The 2nd Annual Pat Wachter Pro Bowl Contest

Intro

Saturday

( 1 2 3 ) Contest Results AOSSR and After-Party Sponsors Who is Pat Wachter?

Pre-Contest and Beginners

Mini-ramp snake session

Greg Siefried and John Waight taking a vert break

Heat clears out the mini-ramp for a while

Scott Hughston and his trademark frontside invert

Bacon skates Kevin Kowalski with a high Judo

Kevin Kowalski goes the other way kicking a Lien-to-tail

Crowd as the Beginners contest kicks off

Checking out the street area

view of the Buttcrack Bowl

Wind gust blows the VIP tent out to the street section

Where'd the tent go?

Paul Gierow grinds through the corner after the beginners finish

�    God has a great sense of humor. You plan an event months in advance, pick a time of the year known for great weather and when the day comes, it pours rain. But I said God has a sense of humor. Today, the rain was "just a little joke". It stopped at the perfect time, and the rest of the day was beautiful. We could not have asked for better. But I guess I should back up a bit.

    I was awaken around 6:30 am by a tremendous thunderstorm rolling in and shaking my house to it�s foundation. The sound of sheets of rain crashing into my windows and roof was only broken up by the thunder and great flashes of lightening. This was one heckuva a storm! I worried that we might be washed out for the day. However, checking the radar and listening to the local weathermen, they said the bad stuff would push out and be gone by lunch. Some others and I had planned to meet up early and make the 2 hour drive up to Insanity Skate in Madison from Birmingham. I met up with Mark Eddings around 9 am for him to catch a ride, and it was still pouring out. The entire drive up, it remained gray. Just as we would go through one rain shower and think we were done, we would hit another. On and on, this continued the whole way. Just as we were coming into Madison and topped the last hill before our exit, the clouds parted, the sun came out and all we saw for miles was blue sky. The weathermen had been right! And God got his good chuckle on us as well.

   We pulled into the park to find a lot of people already there and underway with practice and such. The park had pretty much dried up when we got there. Perfect.

   I was giddy with excitement. I always am when first getting to a new park or one I haven�t skated in a long time. I made the quick rounds seeing who all was there and saying my "hello�s". After that, I padded right up and hit the vert ramp. I don�t care much for their bowl, but I hadn�t had the chance to skate a vert ramp in months and do like theirs. Besides myself, there were only 2-3 others skating it. That made for some tiring runs...especially in the heat. For a while, it was just Gred "Sig" Siegfried, a guy visiting from Oxford, local ripper Scott Hughston, and me skating the ramp.

    Right off, I had noticed someone flying around on the mini-ramp and just killing it. Long stand up grinds across the whole ramp, ollie tricks over the spine, blunt variations out the wazoo and more. He just looked like he was having fun just using the whole ramp. That same person then jumped on the vert ramp padless and started doing all these cool reverts and slides and such. Turns out it was Frank Faria of Bacon skateboards. I introduced myself, and we skated a bit together. Soon we were joined by 16 year old wonder-kid, Kevin Kowalski, also a Bacon skater. Kevin was just sick to watch. He was killing it. Huge airs and grinds on the vert ramp all at mach speed and all padless. They just grow them differently out in Oregon I guess. (ha-ha) We took a break and went over to check out the bowl. After 2-3 runs, I remembered why I hated that lumpy, kinked bowl so much. I asked Kevin what he thought about it. �Well, it�s not great, but you skate what�s in front of you, ya know.�, he replied. What a helluva great attitude! Thanks for making me feel like crap, Kevin. (ha-ha) At one point, Kevin did a big waste high Judo air on one of the bad walls of the bowl. He pops out, and I told him how cool that was to see. He told me he had just learned Judo airs at Kona about 3 days before this. Ahhhh to be young again. (ha-ha) I watched a few of the others take bowl runs and headed back to the vert ramp. Around then, the beginners contest started up. Those little guys are fun to watch, but I wanted to get in some skating time. I did walk over and caught the end of their last runs. It is inspiring to see the little guys picking up the torch to carry for the next generation. It�s cool to see the ones that have never skated a bowl that try it out and then become addicted to it. The big trick for the beginners aside from dropping in seemed to be axle stalls in the shallow end. Gotta start with the basics. Good job, groms.