quated from papa ---Props to Big Boulder Park! Were conditions epic, or what? Ok... lets get the debate rollin...
1. WTF is up with Van Gilder? I heard him tell Ian
that either BB stands behind his decision to not use the bottom jump or
they would pull out of the comp. BB should have told him to leave and
then reopened the comp after a vote on what the majority of the riders
wanted. Or something... That guy needs jacked up.
2. Shop teams is great idea, I really like Kearnes at
Revival, good guy, but I don't think any the guys at on that team work
at his shop in Lancaster PA.
3. Props to BB for allowing skiers in! Hisses and Boos
for the smart ass announcer who would giggle when a skier wrecked on
the big jump on the bottom. Who are the skier judges in our area who
can be enlisted to even things out in the future? ---
i agree with everything you just posted.
1. i did usasa last year and bill made some last minute calls during stuff last year that screwed people up, but that top jump yesterday was no where near as nice as the bottom one. speed was a non issue on that bottom jump as long as you sacked up and went for it. there was no way you could overshoot it. the top jump, had you even been able to get enough speed, could have been overshot because the landing was pretty short, but it was near impossible to get enough speed for the thing. i would say a good 75%-80% of the kids that were in my heat cased it hard. so much for the top jump being safer huh bill? maybe you should have switched back to the bottom jump after you saw everyone come up short on the first one, that no one had practiced on, like you told me you were going to during lunch.
2. i loved skiing in the shop team division. i dont often get to ski with all the kids from my shop at once, so that was a lot of fun. i think we fed off each other and all skied really well. the kids from revival also threw down and were fun to watch. they're definately talented. as far as whether any of them work at the shop, i dont know, i've never been there, but all of us brought along paystubs for proof in case we got questioned...
3. i guess my emails (along with other I am sure) got somewhere on this one. i'm glad they opened it up to skiers too. i didnt notice any problems with the announcers, they congratulated us whenever we rolled through that bottom jump. i completely agree with the need to get skier judges in there. i'm sure the judges would recognize a nollie lip on a snowboard, but i kind of doubt they did when i did it on skis. also, the wallride was like a dagger for us, cause those things were near impossible to hit on skis with the sorry shape the tranny was in. its very difficult to judges skiers against snowboarders, especially when there is a natural bias towards the snowboarders due to the fact that none of the judges ski.
on a final note, good job ian and the crew from BB. you guys did an awesome job building both parks and it was a super fun day. next time van gilder tries to due something stupid, kick him in the balls and take over, i'm sure you guys would do a better job running things than he does anyway.
