Craig Coker likes candlelight dinners and stress-free intimacy.
Words by Ian Kirkpatrick, photos by Julie Weinberger
Against a heavy field of competitors, virtual unknown Tim Russell made a mockery of an awesome jam set up right in the middle of Frisco, Colorado last night. The city organizers put a ton of effort and commitment into this event. A whole two city blocks were shut down so a huge scaffolding drop-in and the jibs could be set up. The arrangement was a high flat rail and a flat-up-flat-down platter type rail.
Friday night turned into a cardio session rather than a jam. The skiers had forty-five minutes broken down into three fifteen-minute sections. Winners of each fifteen-minute session got $1,000 and the overall winner went home with five grand. Everybody was hungry and started speed walking up the stairs to the top of the drop-in.
The snowboarders got their fifteen minutes first and the majority of that field spent their time going big and trying to disaster the multi-kink. Tonight, the skiers brought the technicality and the crowd seemed to be feeling it a little more.
Tom D. made the competition turn the color of his newest thong when they saw this one.
Liam would have stomped this blindside switchup if his pants hadn't fallen down halfway through.
Liam Downey came out guns firing with a switch-up on the down kink and definitely got the field going. Corey Vanular was just flowing tonight. Everything he threw looked effortless. First run he nailed a 270-on-reverse 270 off the flat bar. Grete disastered onto the last down first hit... in all honesty, this was sheer madness. Everybody was going Uzi style. Tanner Rainville started taking the lead from Corey with some smooth spins on, reverse spins off. Later on he was trying to throw a switch-up on the tail end of the flat bar.
Lisa Solberg is glad she isn't related to J.P.
Grete Eliasson had to turn down several marriage proposals after sticking this.
Tim Russell came out with the first two rounds. First time he disaster 450ed to the down part of the big jib. Russell was also the first skier to hit the flat-bar switch. Building on that, he took the second round with a cab 270 on to a reverse 450 off!
Young Napoleon surveys the field.
Capitalizing on the absence of Tanner and Jon, Corey Vanular displayed one of the most well-rounded pipe runs, effortlessly combining air, technicality and his own silky smooth touch at the Gravity Games men's halfpie comp. After trouble with the pie in practice yesterday, Vanular jumped to the top of his game to lock down the gold.
"Today's pipe was a lot better and it was great to come out and just do this today," he said.
Nobody was feeling the pipe Friday, complaining about too much vert. Being the well-managed mountain that it is, Copper sent out the crew last night to cut a better shape. The riders were still a little concerned about competing after the snowboarding women's finals, especially after a sunny morning. By the time clock started ticking on the two-hour jam session, cloud cover was rolling in, a good news-bad news situation. The pipe wouldn't get anymore sunbaked and chewed up, but the flat light made reading the transition difficult.
Vanular likes his mutes like he likes his women - opposite. Wait, that doesn't make any sense.
Josh Bibby seems to be taking the reigns of switch pipe skiing. After toying around with some different combos, he nailed a seven to smooth cab seven six or seven feet out, then air-to-fakied into a cab nine about eight feet above the lip. J.P. Solberg brought some great boost, kicking off most of his runs with a gigantic cork nine and closing with a cork 10.
John Spriggs gets high, Colorado style.
T.J. was enjoying the fun, open jam vibe. He didn't even ski pipe until today and feeling a little under the weather. "I wanted to save myself for the slopestyle but I thought, ya know, this is a jam. Once practice started I just thought I'd try to start stepping it up. I had two hours so I just started to build it up." Coming out of nowhere, Mathias Wecxsteen took fourth with three twisted up nines in his run.
TJ shows the state of progression with a wicked iron cross.
Simon charged with his standard massive flow. OK, his first five wasn't twenty feet out, but by the end of the day he got those few feet tacked on. With a minute left, Simon took his last run going the biggest of the day but it wasn't enough, landing him in third. There was a little sketchiness on his landings.
Andy Woods had a great afternoon, spending the time lurking around top-five. He eventually came out in second, beating the Dumont. Woodsy didn't have nearly as much amp going but he showed some good progression through the end of the session. Starting out with his huge flair tail to straight air, he threw a steezed-out truck driver cork five. Coming into his last hits though, he was struggling landing a cork seven and eventually stuck it.
Thought Andy Woods was out? Hell no, this kid's in it 'til the end.
But the man of the day, Corey Vanular, should really put a trademark down on his run. With a lofty cork five to start, cork nine in the middle of the run and that leading hand mute cork 10, all wrapped up (Hot damn I dig that trick!!!) Corey was just owning it putting in about three perfect tries with that combo.
Vanular, Woods and Simon.
Alright, that's it for today. Right now, I gotta run outside and catch the free J5 concert.
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Ian Kirkpatrick thinks that rail jams aren't worth writing about.
Julie Weinberger likes to sing in the shower.
