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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?

Intermission

Steven Reeves killing it (photo by Insanity Skate)

Reeves gets style-e (photo by Insanity Skate)

view of the concrete flow section

full view of the street section

Birmingham local Brad Lovell taking it all in

The men behind the big show...Pat Wachter and Tim Spinosi

Phil Hosey tosses some product into the throng of groms

Southern Fried Skates owner, Phil Scalf, chats with Eric Martin from SkateTN.com

� Once the advanced division was done, there was a much longer break. It had gotten much hotter, and the sun was at a bad spot in the bowl. I didn�t mind the extra time. I spent it grabbing a quick bite and some drinks as well as mingling around with old friends. With everyone else taking breaks, I figured it was a good time to get some extra time on the vert ramp. I got over there to find that someone had beaten me too it. It was none other than Tom Kinkle. He is truly one of the most inspiring skaters I have ever seen. Tom is 70�s era Alabama skater with lots of history. That might not sound so earth shattering. I can hear you now saying "So what. He�s an old guy that still skates. What�s the big deal?" Well, along with being part of skateboarding and Alabama skating for a much longer time than me and most people that will read this, Tom is also legally blind. Yes. You read that right. So imagine a legally blind guy skating a vert ramp and doing big carves both ways on the vert! Now are you stoked? Thought so. (ha-ha) I said what�s up to Tom but didn�t want to interrupt him. He gave a quick "hello" my way and continued on. He finished his run and went off to see some other folks around the park. I got a few more runs in, but wanted to make sure I was around for the Masters division contest.

Masters Contest

Masters practice (that's me with the Greek deck! woo who!haha)(photo by Insanity Skate)

John Waight works the shallow (photo by Insanity Skate)

Mark Eddings taking a run (photo by Insanity Skate)

full view of the bowl as Masters begin

Paul Gierow frontside air assault

Mark Eddings shows off his long layback tail slides

Mark Pfiefer floats a lien-to-tail

Phil Scalf double trucking frontside through the deep corner at speed

Paul Gierow frontside air (photo by Insanity Skate)

Mark Pfiefer airs the hip

Scott Hughston spins into a frontside invert (photo by Insanity Skate)

Mark Pfiefer loses the handle

Mark Eddings comes in from a layback rollout in the corner

Paul Gierow throws out a layback air

Mark Pfeifer stalls inverted (photo by Insanity Skate)

Truly Old School run on a vintage BDS (photo by Insanity Skate)

� Last up was the Masters division contest. Read that as "the old guys". These were my people...the skaters I had grown up with. We are all much older now, but enjoying our useless wooden toys no less. The practice runs were more like a reunion of old friends. Even though my disdain for that bowl is well documented here (ha-ha), I jumped in for a few runs. Just about all of us were taking some runs to try to work out some lines as we contemplated skating in the contest simply "for old time�s sake". For me, it wasn�t happening though. I knew I would have more fun clicking photos than dealing with that bowl. (Sorry...guess I am spoiled now on my home park�s bowl.) I wasn�t the only one though. Out of probably 10-12 of us "old guys", only 5 ended up being in the contest. That made it no less entertaining though. For the masters group, nerves were definitely not involved. We tend to have a "who gives a f@ck" mentality.(ha-ha) Along with that, no one wanted a structured, timed runs kind of format, so that was thrown right out the window. It was just going to be a good old fashion jam session amongst friends. Cool! Watching it go down was great fun. I was just as stoked to see some of these guys actually skating all together again as I was to see some of the great tricks they pulled off. Locals Paul "Gyro" Gierow and Phil Scalf were both killing the grinds and frontside airs. Old man, Mark "Shreddings" Eddings, from Birmingham is right at 50 now and wasn�t going down easy to these "young guys" (ha-ha). He was pulling his characteristic several-coping-block-long, high-speed, layback tail slides and frontside airs. Recent Alabama transplant (and old school Florida skater), Scott Hughston was going for some big tricks. He was having a rough time with frontside inverts in that bowl though.(I mean, who can�t do a frontside invert, geez Scott...ha-ha). Above everyone though, Mark Pfiefer was ripping just like the old days. That guy has always had tricks and style for days, and it looked like he hadn�t skipped a minute. I had not seen Mark since at least 1989 or so. He had made the trip back home to Huntsville from Maryland where he says he hits many of the local parks to keep up his skills. His bag of tricks included some nice stalled out inverts, travelling lien-to-tails over the hip, frontside airs and an assortment of grinds all around the bowl. To top it off, he seemed to be snaking every other run! For the masters, I thought it would be very close to call among the top.