Skateboarders of from Vancouver to Eugene gathered at Bush Park at The fourth annual EXIT Skate Classic on August 4th. This year's 4 events included head to head slalom, longest manual, best gap trick and downhill street course.
For those of you who don't know, Bush Park in Salem, Oregon is home of a soap box derby track that makes for a legal hill bomb any time any day. With the steep upper section a mellower lower section with a run out at the end, the soap box derby track is good place to ride a skateboard. Situated betwixt a hundreds of hundred-year-old oak trees, the soap box derby track plays host each august to The EXIT Skate Classic.
At The Skate Classic, skateboarders of all ages are invited to participate in a fun filled series of competitions designed to call to all ages of skateboarders. It's the contest organizer's goal to get skaters of all ages and interests to skate together and try out types of skateboarding that they might not otherwise be exposed to. It's the best when you see younger street rippers step up to the start of the slalom. The initial hook of skateboarding, I think, is the freedom of rolling fast and pushing your personal limit of staying in control. We, as skaters push our limits further and further in order to continue to get back to that initial rush that first sucked us in! The basics of skateboarding can still provide that rush if you go faster and throw in some obstacles.
The street course is an ordinary fixture in many contests today, but most don't include a car or launch ramps anymore, except for this year's Skate Classic! The Skate Classic's downhill street course was a modernized throw-back to Sacramento's Capitola classic of the eighties. Cars used to be a regular staple at street skating events in the eighties. Duh! It's fun to ride on a car and dent it with reckless abandon. Other obstacles included two semi-circle manual pad / ledges (former snowboard rack salvage from EXIT 1), a fire hydrant, a 6' long 12" square steel tube, 1 round flat bar, 1 square flat bar, wedge to wedge gap (over car), quarterpipe and bank ramp and a launch ramp.
Highlights of the event for me were EXIT's newest team member and employee, Lance Normine and his giant ollies over the car and landing ramp altogher! Other highlights were Gabe Stoltz's 1.5 flip at at full speed at the last cone in the slalom. After de-blacking out, Gabe took about 12 minutes to collect himself at the bottom of the orange lane. I was just glad that he wasn't headed for the hospital after his nasty fall. He might have thought better to call it quits after that, but not Gabe! He was back up to the top of the hill for his second run... which ended in much the same way. Gabe is fast and fearless. On his last run, he made it through all gates successfully and went on to the street course to shred in his totally hot eighties style. Bobby Groves (Bridgeport EXIT employee) had his shred on as did Brian Dickinson (Salem EXIT employee and long standing team member). Brian kickflipped the car and backside flipped the car too. Tim Pigsley 3 flipped the car. Chase Bailey got an blunt indy grab to fakie off the side of the trunk and a 5-0 on the back of the trunk. Even Salem skate legend, Scott Lambright was riding on top of the car and cop-dropping off. Check the pics for his Gonz-ish super boneless.
Although we featured the longest manual contest at the 1st skate classic, this year's manual contest included added difficulty! A street course and lurkers right at the bottom of the hill! Most skaters in this event were pretty fortunate to get a hole shot and no hot dog eating wanderers in stumbling into their way... but, the winner of the contest, Elliot Murphy (EXIT team rider) was not so lucky for one of his runs. Coming down the hill at whot 30+ MPH in manual there was the skate-scoot shuttle coming up. This would have been OK if the driver and sidecar were paying a little more attention. But, narrowly avoiding head-on collision, Elliot swerved and cartwheeled to scorpion. Battered, bruised, bloodied and shoeless, the now angry Elliot walked off the course to recollect what happened and to check himself. He was OK in the end, though probably very soar the next day.
The last piece of carnage occurred when Chase Bailey was wallriding the car and put his hand back into the broken windshield to steady himself when he took some glass shards away with him. Unable to find the first aid kit, I took him to EXIT in Salem and still found no tweezers in the first aid kit... so after a visit to Rite Aid for medical supplies, Chase operated under hot lights in the EXIT bathroom and then went back to watch the Gap contest.
During the Gap contest, skaters gapped out into the street off of some very gradual take off ramps to land on the sidewalk and some crates and plywood that were used to extend the landing area. Benihanas, Pocantas, pop-shuvs, frontside flips, speedy landing-ramp clearing, other technical fancy dancing happened that I'm not able to process!
All in all, The EXIT Skate Classic 4 was not a bore! Fun was had for everyone. Bobby Potterf brought his BBQ to cook and serve 96 free hot dogs along free sodas and tons of prizes from Bones, 411 Video Magazine, Fallen Shoes, RVCA clothing, Girl Skateboards, Arbor Skateboards, Sector 9, Slave Skateboards, Mystery Skateboards and EXIT real world, of course! Thanks to all of those people and companies that helped out. We'll see ya there next year.
SLALOM
1) Pete Ingraham
2) Scott Lambright
3) Chase Bailey
STREET COURSE
1) Brian Dickinson
2) Bobby Groves
3) Tim Pigsley
LONG MANUAL
1) Elliot Murphy
2) Lance Normine
3) Jeff Hickock
GAP TRICK
1) Sebo Walker
2) Lance Normine
3) Elliot Murphy
Check out all the pictures below!
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Check out last year's winners, photos and video!
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