2007 Oregon Trifecta at Portland's Pier Park- By Conahan and barely Kilwag: Posted 8-16-07
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2007 Oregon Trifecta at Portland's Pier Park.

The first thing I thought when I heard Pier Park would be one of the stops on the Trifecta was, “No way I’m getting in that bowl with five other guys.” Dreamland’s 20 foot diameter full-pipe and 11.5 deep bowl with tile and pool-coping is big and fast and a collision in there would be no joke. The second thing I thought was that if I wanted to be the second guy over the mousehole, I was going to have to get it done before the Trifecta.

 

The format was changed for safety. One rider would go at a time in heats of six. Both the Women’s and Grand Masters’ divisions were limited to 15 minutes of warm up and scored on the best of two competition runs. Skaters who didn’t show up early were pretty much skating the bowl cold. It was definitely safer, though it was going to be tricky to get through the field before dark. Pier has no lights.

 

The women’s division was missing a couple of names from Lincoln City. The field was down to twelve compared to 22 the day before. Annie Sullivan who won at Lincoln City was out with a broken elbow. The bowl seemed to be a little too gnarly for some of the ladies. Locals Jessica Starkweather and Kim Richards would have an advantage but Julie Kindstrand showed up a couple of days early and her practice sessions paid off. She showed some good lines and a variety of tricks and that monster didn’t seem to scare her at all. She was beyond happy to win the event, babbling into the microphone like she just got elected prom queen or something. That's not a dig ate her either, just the best way to describe how happy she was. Jessica took second for her gnarly grinds on the 11.5 foot walls and Holly Lyons took third.

 

Grand Masters promised to be interesting with a couple of old Upland Pipeline veterans in the mix. Duncan kept telling everyone that using both bowls and high pipe lines would be essential for a good score. Salba had no problem with that, he was aiming to be the second guy ever to skate over the mousehole in the pipe. He had been working on it for several days and he got it done frontside four tries after his two official runs. I wonder if the judges counted that? He was ripping the bowl too. Salba got second. Winner Glen Charnoski and fourth place Pat Ngoho also showed up early in the week and had a few practice sessions under their belts. Steve Steadham, made his second Trifecta appearance as the ex-Bones Brigadier on deck but was feeling sick, it was amazing that he skated so well (11th). Buck Smith (second) and Duane Peters (fifth) were also ripping. Duane did invert reverts, layback rollouts and that 540 cess-slide thing and was overheard proclaiming this the best bowl ever. Watching Duane skate Pier Park was a real treat. You could really tell how he must have blown minds at his peak. heck, he was still blowing minds. Locals Mark Conahan and Steve Grover placed sixth and ninth out of the field of 19.

 

42 skaters competed in the main event including several locals, amazing since supposedly everyone except the pad goons hate that big bowl. There were also several 12-14 year-old vert skaters ripping, another generation in the vert. Local Shane Bell became the first man to ride the 13+ foot line over the mousehole backside. He aslo did it two consecutive rins in a row, and he was so stoked that his outward enthusiam may have provoked Benji Galloway to finally make it as well. Shane remains the only non-professional skateboarder to make it over that hole. Actually, he's not even sponsored yet, but now he has intersted parties.

 

There were some heavy hitters in town for the competition. Rune Glifberg (1st) and Sergie Ventura (2nd) have both performed in Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam. Benji Galloway (3rd) has won a bunch of Trifecta contests in the past and was padded up and looking strong in the big bowl. 12 year old Morgan Burgess (4th) was astonishing. The kid was doing 540s in the 11.5! Sergie was doing airs seven or eight feet out of the big bowl! including one footed Japan airs, super tweaked alley-oops and 540s. He also did a cool alley-ooped disaster slide even though he didn't have much in the pipe. Rune and Benji both went over the mousehole. Rune did it both frontside and backside. Sergie looked like he could have won it if he had ridden more of the park. Instead he seemed to ride the deep end like it was a half pipe. He went a magnitude higher than anyone there and was super stylish, but his focused riding hurt his overall standing. Rune rode more of the park and had a few more techinal moves thrown in. Benji seemed resigned to third. If he had nailed that Indy Kickflip things might have been different.

 

So some really good skateboarding went down, a lot of stuff we won’t see again soon at Pier Park. The mousehole line fell to four different guys and several other skaters made close tries. A memorable day at the park. Now go enjoy way too many pictures of Sergie Ventura.

Official results available from the World Cup web site: Pro Results | Ladies Results | Masters Results

 

 

2007 Oregon Trifecta at Portland's Pier Park- By Conahan and barely Kilwag: Posted 8-16-07
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photos © The guys who took them.