Automatic Mag’s 4th Annual “Battle of the Shops 2007”

Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

First up was the Tech Center. It was a little bit of chaos on this recycled Manny Mania obstacle. That's Jacob Evans ollieing up to 5-0 transfer down the bank

Donnie Mitchell is going to 270 shuv out of this back tail

Jake Lapole got into this switch crook with a nollie half cab

Tom Eukovich feeble grinded across the whole top

Kenny Hoyle - nollie noseslide across the whole top

Nate Sherwood was selling a video called "Get Wasted"

Jimmy Carlin did some kind of weird dolphin flip down the double - I think it was a heelflip dolpin

Steven Bey - 360 flip

Joshua Grossguth made this backside flip clean, but couldn't stick the backside 180 late back foot flip

Doubles on the double set - it was a snake session

Ryan Clements and Jeff King were on the mic. Schaefer was in Costa Mesa swinging hammers on the Damn Am course construction for next week

Danny Scher - whether it's a joke or serious, someone always has to throw down the Bennihanna. This time it was Danny Scher

Andrew Wiskus - frontside noseblunt on part of the Tranny Section

The Dick Gauntlet from last year's Vans Downtown Showdown was there. Alec Beck has a back d on it

Matt Kriegel - rock and roll on the weird tranny to wall

Jimmy Brand - fakie rock in front of a pile up crowd

I just learned a Miller flip revert is called a unit. That's what Josh Mattson is doing here

Josh Mattson strokes the Dick Gauntlet up and down with a blunt fakie

Shannon from Automatic was my smoking hot assistant all day. Seriously, I think I had a half staff for like four hours. If I was that dog, it would be red rocket status for sure

Alright, back to the skating, unfortunately. That's Kevin Jones on a frontside nosegrind

Brendan Keaveny - back lip

It was heavy traffic on the Rail Jam also. Someone back there is feeble grinding

Wes Kremer - switch frontside nosegrind

Donovan Piscopo - lipslide

Kevin Jones - pop shuv frontside 50-50

Andrew Pott - kickflip frontside 50-50 on a round rail is a pretty dangerous trick

Andrew Pott's medical grade shirt. Yeah, duuuude

Michael Prince is the West Coast Miami Jackson. That's a back lip

Justin Cefai won the Tech

There were a few people there

Kevin Romar took it on the Double Set

Josh Mattson was Tranny champ

There was a healthy rivalry going on between Pharmacy and ZJ. ZJ ended up winning it and took home $5,000

Filmer Sara decided to take a break this weekend and just hang out instead of work. I got a spectacular update on her sex life that I unfortunately can't share with anyone. Thanks for hanging out Sara! She'll be filming at Damn Am next weekend. See you there

Below are the full results from Battle of the Shops 2007 in Carlsbad, California

We landed on Friday evening and since there wasn’t much to do in Vista we headed over to Carlsbad to skate the Black Box TF. You won’t see any pics of that because Rob was ripping the entire time, but after a tweaked ankle for him and a slam to the tailbone for me, we were out.

Finding a decent place to eat in Vista posed even more of a challenge, but we settled on Chili’s and crashed early in anticipation of a great day ahead.

This is our third time helping out at Battle of the Shops and it is one of the most fun events that we get to work. Like I already mentioned, it’s just such a great vibe because the shops participating truly do “battle.” All of the skaters in the Contest really skate their asses off for their respective Teams.

So the way that this works is that there are four obstacles, and each Team enters one skater in a 30-minute Jam on each of the different obstacles. There are prizes for the winners of each obstacle as well as an overall Shop winner.

Where have I seen this obstacle before? Well, since it was such a hit at Manny Mania back in May on Venice Beach, we might as well use it again, right? The Tech Center has everything that a technical wizard needs to get busy…tall ledge, wedge, step-up, and bank-to-bank with a curb-high ollie at the bottom.

This was a great way to get the day started at high noon. There was some serious ripping going down, but the money was reserved only for the top dog. However, I do want to give a shout-out to Tom Eukovich from Asylum, who got 5th and skated harder and slammed more than anyone.

• 3rd – Val Surf – Justin Schulte – this dude has pretty much the best style and trick selection out there. If he would have landed a few more tricks, he would have taken it
• 2nd – Route 44 Skateshop – Ben Skrzypek – he was going for the nosegrind to something on the flat ledge, but kept getting hung up on the seam in the coping. He must have landed a few things though, but I since I was announcing I didn’t get to take notes and don’t recall
• 1st – $1000 – ZJ – Justin Cefai – I actually remember Justin from Manny Mania, but since that was a pro-only event, he couldn’t enter. But maybe that made him want it that much more because the manny up, kickflip to nose manny down was perfect

Time to step it up and jump down a gap, so we headed over to the three-flat-three to get our carcass-toss on. This obstacle wasn’t overly big or anything, but it was just the right height and length to make anything down it considered “pretty damn good.” The run-up was a bit short, but that’s what separated the boys from the men.

When we announced, “It’s on!” that was quite an understatement. The participants were so excited that at one point the carcasses were actually piling up on top of each other. When the dust settled, the unbeaten champion for the past three years had to finally give up his crown.

• 3rd – Joshua Grossguth – Pharmacy – I think that the judges counted the bs 180 back foot flip (for real) that he pulled right at the end of the Jam, but Joshua had the crowd behind him and killed it the entire time
• 2nd – Jimmy Carlin – Street Machine – the former champ now has a great hook-up with Mystery and Osiris, but the porpoise flip wasn’t enough for him to take home the money this year
• 1st – $1000 – Kevin Romar – Furnace – I don’t think that style can get much more buttery than Kevin’s. His humble personality is simply a reflection of his ultra-smooth skating. Did anyone say an extra $100 gift certificate for his nollie bs big heel courtesy of Wahoo’s?

It was now mid-day and the sunburns were starting to kick in. The tranny obstacle was next and there was no slippin’ on this monstrosity. Just by the shear size of the tranny to bank, you really had to push it to get to the top of the damn thing. Add with the steep quarter-pipe in the middle of it to throw you off, a mellow quarter on the right side, and the Dick Gauntlet from Vans Downtown Showdown on the left side, and you had one serious session.

Oh, up until this point I think that I forgot to mention how gnarly the ground was in the Syndrome Distribution parking lot. It was cement, but all of it had a broom finish. So if you fell where normally you would get a little scrape, the coarseness of the ground would give you a decent gash. For example, when Tom Remillard fell, I literally heard the skin scrape off of his knee. He wasn’t stoked. Here’s who killed it:

• 3rd – Nick Garcia – Furnace – he was a little on the younger side to be a tranny ripper, but Nick had a smooth style. I recall him doing the blunt airwalk to fakie on the top of the bank, so that must have earned him the placing
• 2nd – ZJ – Alec Beck – at first what seemed as a sketchy attempt at a big move, Alex ended up pulling the gap from the quarter-pipe to fs 50/50 on the top of the bank. But what was super-gnar was when he pulled it into the tiny quarter in the middle of the thing!
• 1st – $1000 – Josh Mattson – Santa Cruz – this just in! Josh DOES NOT bail. He either makes it, slides out, or eats $h!t. You will find no one that skates with as much determination as this kid. He had everything you can imagine and threw in the pivot to fakie on the bank for me personally

The sun was on it’s way to setting and you could feel that the evening was on it’s way, but there was still one more obstacle that needed to be annihilated before the end of the day…the handrail was the only thing left. When you weren’t watching, the constructors from Four Down attached a round rail to the already existing double-set for the fourth and final event.

The crowd was extra-anxious for the carnage that was about to happen; hence, we had a difficult time getting them into place and allowing enough room for the landing. Thanks to Lance Conklin from Black Label for the assistance. The final Jam of the day lasted for the standard 30-minutes, but I tried to get Michael Prince to land the bs lipslide shove-it for $20 after ‘time’ to no avail. Here are the top three of those that killed it:

• 3rd – Andrew Pott – Ninestar – the entire Ninestar crew had jerseys on that read their last name, which made it much easier for us announcers (greatly appreciated). Andrew’s number read “420.” I don’t get it. Can anyone explain?
• 2nd – Marquise Preston – Pharmacy – last year’s champ put up one ‘helluva’ fight to keep his title. Marquise had fs bigspins and kickflips to regular boardslide…and several others that I can’t recall, but Wes could not be beaten
• 1st – $1000 – Wes Kremer – Sun Diego – okay, let me just say that Wes’s skating was pretty much untouchable. He could have gotten top five by doing his tricks regular, but he earned the win by doing the noseblunt, nosegrind, and kickflip boardslide SWITCH! Whoa…what a great ending to the day

It could have been almost anyone’s…Pac Drive killed it, Sun Diego had rippers in there, and Furnace had a couple of top three’s, but when it came down to the final results, the most overall collective Team efforts were the ones that made the cut:

• 3rd – $500 – Val Surf – with ripping stylists like Richard Carvalho on the Tranny and Justin Schulte on the Tech, you’re bound to be in the top three
• 2nd - $1000 – Pharmacy – like someone said to me when I was announcing, there must be something in the water out there. The Pharmacy guys were chanting, “PHAR-MA-CY! PHAR-MA-CY! PHAR-MA-CY!”
• 1st – $5000 – ZJ – it’s a matter of strategy in these Team vs. Team type contests. The more skaters you have placing higher on each obstacle, the more likely you are to win as a Team. A 9th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st did it for ZJ. Congrats!

The day couldn’t have gone any smoother. Literally everyone in attendance was there because they wanted to be. You could feel the good vibes in the spirit of friendly competition. The drunk girl that was hanging out during the Results was a great added touch to the fun times.

I’d like to take a moment here to say thanks to our generous sponsors:

• Syndrome Distribution (Plan B, FKD, Silver) for providing the facility
• Monster Energy Drink
• Adio
• Dragon
• Bones
• Ogio
• Wahoos Fish Tacos

By the way, the crowd was great…give yourselves a well-deserved round of applause. The judges (Rothmeyer, Sinclair, Laird) were on point. Thanks to Jeff King from King Rails for making an excellent co-host with the announcing and Four Down for facilitating the ramps. And special thanks to Mike Migdol and staff from Automatic Magazine for making the whole thing happen. Hope to see you guys next year.

Ryan