April 14th, 2001

Chad Benson tre flip onto the platform bank

I got a call from Steve Ruge (Shrewgy) a few days later and he seemed like a good dude. He was hired to take care of the skateboarding element. He's the head judge for the World Cup so he definitely knows what's up. So we settled on Myself, John Muldoon, and Seth McCallum for judges. Seth could've skated in the contest but with the prize being a trophy, trucks, and wheels for first he decided to judge and get paid.

So on Friday night I went down to the St. Paul Radisson and met up with Shrewgy, Pierre-Luc, Brian Patch and all the bikers & rollerbladers and we went to check out the set up. It was a pretty nice set up. The ASA has a pretty cool half pipe that is built into the back of these trucks and cost them a fortune to build. The street course was fun. Being stuck at the 3rd Lair all winter it was fun to see anything different.

The turn out for the contest was about what I expected. Not too many skaters or spectators. It's basically the promoters fault. The guy was hardly even there. He didn't know anything about skateboarding. This was obvious by the bands that were playing in between heats and during the contest he had techno DJ's that were driving everyone fucking nuts. Dave Mirra is an amazing bike rider. I don't know shit about biking but that guy was fun to watch. It's just gnarly to see someone have that much control over a big piece of metal.

A shitty photo of Neal Erickson's 5-0. I was tired. Get off my back.

So there were 23 skaters in the contest and it was narrowed down to 10 for a final heat. I thought it was a great opportunity for the local skaters to compete on a course like that to get somewhat of a feeling of a large contest might be like. It was great to have Shrewgy there as commentator and giving us pointers on how the pro circuit is judged. That dude has seen and done a ton for skateboarding. He worked for Thunder Trucks for years, was team manager for World, played in bands with Tommy Gurrero, all kinds of shit. His opinion matters, basically, and I think he had a good time up here despite the promotional problems.

Did I get side tracked? Probably. So top 10 skaters. It was pretty rad. I haven't seen that many flawless runs in a long time. And keep in mind this isn't at the 3rd Lair where we skate every day. This is on a course that the guys had only a few hours so to get used to. But once narrowed down they were ripping. The Badger even made it in the top ten... Barely. He was tricked into eating a magic cookie by a fellow hesher and by the time he found out he made the cut he was fucked. Anyway, there was a lot of good skating. I was really impressed with Chad Baesler. He qualified second place behind Mike Haugen. That's damn good. The kid rips. CJ Tamdorina and Jason Byrne were also skating really well. Those guys made the top ten too. But the young gun that stepped up hardcore was Tom Beggs. Tom skates at the park a lot and definitely showed some skills at the contest. He had a flawless run that included kickflips, melons over the launch, boardslides on the handrails, lien ollie mellons over the hip... I was hyped for him. He got 4th place and it was well deserved.

These three had sex after the contest. Munska and friends.

The top three all had flawless runs. Wait... actually, Benson did fall. But third was the Munska. He stayed on his whole run and ended with a tailslide shov-it that was rad. Benson got second with long ass manuals, tre flips, switch tre flips, boardslides up the handrail, everyday Benson skating. But it wasn't to be for Benson. Neal Erickson was on fire. In the middle of a run Shrewgy said, "Doesn't anyone in this town do crooked grinds?" - so Neal nails one on the bump to bump box. It was pretty rad. He did bluntslides, frontside 5-0's, and capped his run with a switch 5-0 down the handrail. It was close, but Iota takes top three. Not bad.

These three had sex after the contest. Top Three... Benson, Neal, and Munz. Iota.

Prelim Round Results		Final Round Results
Mike Haugen Chad Baesler Neal Erickson Chad Benson Wayne Zerr Tom Beggs Mike Munzenrider CJ Tamdorina Jason Byrne Kyle Ross Brian Vaughn Chris Knudsen Dane Vaughn Ryan Casey Keith Masanz Mike Meneely Marcus Shelton Kyle Johnson-Creamer Luke Stevens Joseph Jensen Anthony Courneyea Rick Michaelsen Shawn Rebeir	93 90.3 90 89.6 87.5 86.6 85.3 83.3 82.3 81.3 81 80.3 80 76.3 74.3 73.7 72.3 71.3 70.3 69.3 64.7 63 61.3	Neal Erickson Chad Benson Mike Munzenrider Tom Beggs Mike Haugen Wayne Zerr Chad Baesler Jason Byrne CJ Tamdorina Kyle Ross	94.3 92 91.3 90.6 89.3 89 88.3 84 80.3 78.3

BRIAN PERRY