Tom Rohrer (roar) wins the young guns division

It's father's day today. My dad was always pretty hard on me about skating. He just thought it was a stupid pastime. But I was remembering that on at least four different occasions when I still lived with my parents I tried building skate ramps in the yard even though he told me I couldn't. I built a small one in the basement that he smashed. I then built one in the woods that I just never finished. Then later I went into the upper part of this barn/garage we had and I threw all of what I thought was junk into a corner and built a mini-ramp. It turns out that the junk I threw were parts to a Model A Ford that my dad was going to rebuild when he retired. I remember waiting for him to go nuts but he simply called me an 'asshole'. I was just so driven to skate something that I didn't care who's shit I wrecked. So now once a year on father's day I take the time to make myself feel a little bad about the chipped cement, the times he had to take me to court, the Tony Hawk bangs and the Model A that I nearly ruined.

C.J. skated hard and got 3rd place. His prize was a Tony Hawk Trick Tips DVD.

My dad had never seen me skate until last year. I never even considered it. Why would he? The only reason I bring it up is that there were quite a few parents at the Midwest Melee cheering on their kids and in some cases even criticizing other kids. 'BILLY IF YOU DON'T BLUNTSLIDE THAT PICNIC TABLE YOU'RE GROUNDED.' It wasn't exactly like that but it cracked me up to think about it. 'STICK THAT TRE-FLIP YOU LITTLE FUCKER!' I'd like to think my dad would yell shit like that.

But anyway, the contest was a lot of fun. There weren't as many people entered as I expected but it was a nice day on a holiday weekend so what do you expect. The young guns were once again really impressive. Little Cole kickflipped the bump to bump, landed primo, slid for a good half foot before the board fell back on it's wheels and he rode away as if he did it on purpose. He even kinda pumped out of it. It was rad. And yellow helmet/red shirt (we didn't have the kids names) was super sick. This tiny kid feebled, as well as frontside boardslid the handrail. But in the end it was Tom Rohrer who took the young guns with a nearly flawless run. He was stoked.

Jr. Mint and his Mom

Then there was a 16 and over contest followed by the sponsored division. Elijah Collard took the slam of the day on the hubba and he also took his first run with his video in hand. It didn't help him out in the contest but hopefully he'll get some sales out of it. Junior Mint was killing it in practice. Honestly I picked him to win before the contest even started. He's been skating super solid. Nollie 180s - Nollie flips on the bump to bump, Nollie crooked grinds, on and on. C.J. and Munzie were ripping pretty consistently all day too and little Tom Beggs kickflipped onto the picnic table to kickflip out. He skated well but missed the cut by one place.

Munzie and his co-pilot take it home. 1st place. Cutie Pie Munzie Nude Mike Munzenrider

The finals were cut to 6 people. Two runs, best run counts. Munzie's first run was almost perfect. He was sticking hardflips on the back wedge every time. He did have a little trouble with his late shov's but that first run was solid and with almost no time left he tired putting the nail in the coffin with a backside nollie flip over the box but he didn't quite make it. But the run was still the best we had seen all day. Mint bailed his first run and was the top seed going into the finals so he had the last run of the day. After missing his first trick he put a solid run together but came up short on the nollie flip at the end. He tried a few times and nailed it on his third try but it wasn't quite enough. This left Mike Munzenrider as the winner to fly out to the Gravity Games. He skated great at totally deserved it.