Pretty decent turn out, yeah? This wasn’t even the high point in people at the park for the day.
Every year for the last like 8 or so years, I’ve been able to get involved with an annual jam at one of Minnesota’s skateparks. Some people might remember the ones I was able to organize and help out with at Board To Death, Renegade, Mankato, Midwest and 3rd Lair in the past. Each year the events have been getting better and better with more and more support. This year was definitely awesome since it was by far the most we’ve ever been able to give away for prizes.
The only down side to organizing an event is that you’re so busy running around like a chicken with its head cut off to make sure everything keeps rolling smooth. I’ll be honest and say that’s my least favorite part of the day. The other 90% is awesome though and at the end of the day, it’s always worth it.
I was able to snap a few photos throughout the day to help keep track of what went down and everything. I decided I’d upload a bunch to give you an idea of how things panned out. Expect a full photogallery from Tristan Theil at some point this week and once Blake Waters gets back from a quick snowboarding trip the rest of the footage should start popping up.
So let’s see what I had on my camera…
First off, I’d like to give a big shout out to Conrad Heppner, Wyatt Kreel, Jesse Higgins, Josh Schroeder and Glenn Dussl for handling the judging for the day. It’s a pretty chill job, but when the beginner class, intermediate class and expert / pro class finally wrapped up those metal chairs weren’t as comfortable. Shout out of these guys keeping track of things. I didn’t hear a single person say the judging wasn’t fair. That’s always a good thing.
Deljon Willis was going to be announcing for the whole day, but things got crazy and he was running pretty late. Luckily, Jeff McLearen was down to handle the mic. Apparently I was not gifted with a voice that people like hearing… Shout out to Adam, Blake and Nate Waters from Bluff Valley Campground for getting a dialed timer setup and having the skatepark all dialed for the day.
One of the biggest concerns for this year was how to keep things rolling so people didn’t get bored or get too much extra time. This big timer solved that. If it wasn’t for this, we would all still be there watching runs.
The sound board got some use in dialing in the music to announcer ratio. You can see how long the beginner and intermediate classes were. Such a good turn out.
I feel like a dick because I forgot to grab the lists of who won what. So I’m going to just say sorry for not having names for a few of the dudes who won events. TDevin Hunter ended up winning the junior bunny hop contest. He ended up clearing 39″. After he won, he noticed his bars were super cracked and I’m sure if he went for another go things would have went south for him. Luckily, Kink sent through a pair of bars.
Once again, super sorry on not knowing the names for some of these people. This guy won the beginner / intermediate game of foot down. The age range for this one went from like 6 all the way up to 27. Awesome.
Here’s a look at the winners from the beginner class! Little Dallas won it. The kid seriously runs 12 inch wheels and was blasting the box jump. I can’t wait to see the footage from these guys. I’ll post the results when I get the video!
Here’s the winners from the Intermediate class. Expect footage and results soon.
This was the biggest part of the day for me. I was looking forward to this moment for like, 2 weeks. Fly Bikes hooked us up with one of their Electron completes to giveaway. We decided that it would be cool to hook up the most deserving kid from the beginner and intermediate classes. Little Evan Sullivan was riding around on (and throwing some big tricks) on a bike with parts that were older than him! Look at those rusty forks. Check out the clip of us hooking him up. He had no idea what to do, haha. I didn’t see him let go of the bike for the rest of the day.
Deljon Willis showed up just in time for the Expert / Pro class. If the dude wasn’t so awesome, I would have been bummed.
Deljon and Jeff blowing how to pronounce names left and right.
Ben’s last name is actually Eyelander… but Highlander is way more badass.
Go to BNQT.com for more videos.
Here’s what went down in the Pro / Expert class!
Ben Eyelander won it, Colton Walker took second and Dan Nelson walked away with 3rd.
AJ Haines took him the win for the Colony highest bunny hop! Luckily, Reed Stark didn’t pull what he was going for until after the timer expired…
Reed Stark clearing 45 inches. What a beast.
Reed did go home with the win in the Division Brand rail jam. What went down? Well, wait till you see the photos and video later this week to find out.
The S&M Longest Manual… Ever contest was when things started getting super chaotic. We tried to start running dudes across the skatepark doing manuals, while a bunch of other people kept riding. Then all the sudden there was like 30 people trying to win the event and nobody knew what the hell was going on. All the sudden Spencer Sullivan came cooking across the park and ended up almost wall slapping me into the wall. Expect a video to explain this a little better. Needless to say, the plan to make that world record holder look like a pussy was a success even though Guinness wouldn’t have liked how things ended up going down to prove it. It’s BMX… no rules.
Conrad Heppner
Dan Nelson
Reed Stark
When the Deluxe frame came out for the Biggest Air event, the line got pretty long for who thought they could blast the highest. Above you can see some of the best attempts. We honestly had no idea how high people were going. Our measuring system failed miserably when people started airing the 20 foot tall vert wall to get speed to blast the box. We came to a group decision from the spectators that Spencer Sullivan would be the winner of the frame. Somewhere around 12 feet of air.
When trying to come up with an event for FBM, we decided it would be pretty funny to do a pizza eating contest. The first person to crush two pieces of pizza would walk away with a box of goodies from FBM. Seems easy enough, but you would be surprised. Check out that line up.
It’s kind of crazy to think about this, but about 11 years ago I was watching Josh Schroeder be the designated test dummy for any new jump at the old 507 Trails. The rule was that if he ate shit, the jump was perfect because he could only ride the sketchiest of stuff. Fast forward to this weekend and Josh, healing up from a blown out ACL… for the like 3rd time, showed all the kids how you get shit done proper. What a beast.
Best trick went down after the Pizza Eating contest. We had a fresh new frame from Mutiny up for grabs so shit started getting nuts. People were hucking 360 backflips, massive tooth picks on 10 foot sub walls, whips to late barspins…. I honestly can’t wait for the video from this to be ready. People will be blown away. All I’ll say is that AJ Haines walked away the winner with an opposite 360 lookback to late opposite whip. What? Yeah…
After about 10 hours, we finally wrapped everything up…. We told all the people who were still around that there would be a product toss and kids started losing their minds. All of these kids got in on 5 minutes of product raining from the skies.
Then we sneak attacked everyone with a SECOND product toss. This one got heated when the Sun Ringle rims came out. Kids were beating each other up for this and 47 year old men were begging kids for the rims. Weird. Either way… EVERYONE left with prizes. Psyched on all the sponsors!
All right, so that wraps up my photos from the day. Expect some GOOD photos from the riding to come through when Tristan has some time to get them together. Then more edits once Blake gets back from his snowboarding trip!
