ASR January 2008 – Lord of the Lines Presented by Matix

Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

Torey Pudwill - look at how far the ollie is into this backside noseblunt slide. He's not going slow

There was open skating all day before the event. Chris Mendes was doing perfect nollie heel crooked grinds

Almost all of Jackson Curtin's tricks were switch. This is a switch back heel back tail

Benny Fairfax could almost pass for Bastien here. This is a kickflip backside nosegrind

Fully Flared has everyone fully flipping out of smith grinds frontside and backside. Billy Marks - smith grind kickflip out

Torey Pudwill - fully flaring backside flip out of a back smith

Jackson Curtin - switch backside nosegrind

Enrique Lorenzo - frontside 180 switch manny

Lem Villemin - front crook

Malcolm Watson - switch nose manny fakie flip out

Joey Brezinski - half cab kickflip manual

When it's not pretty like this, we call that a "contest make." Torey Pudwill - big spin nose slide

Joey Brezinski - fakie inward heelflip to backside tailslide

Bobby Worrest - frontside flip tailslide

Torey Pudwill - kickflip backside noseblunt slide

Curren Caples was light years ahead of the the other tikes on the mini-ramp

Mike Santarosa and I are light years ahead of the tikes there, too. In age, that is

I can't remember this girl's name, but she had the stinker grab on lockdown

What's that smell? I think I stepped in poop

Bobby Worrest - frontside feeble grind

Hosting events at trade shows really breaks up the monotony of going booth to booth and checking out the newest gear. And don’t get me wrong, because socializing amongst skateboarding’s finest is truly a pleasure, but after two days of it something really needs to happen.

And to add to the excitement, the public is permitted into the San Diego Convention Center to view the entire thing. They don’t let the non-attendees travel the aisles, but they are permitted into the skate area, which certainly adds to the environment and vibe.

We had 19 entrants…the list was invite-only and they were all top dogs. And as I mentioned, these Contests are unique because there are some guys skating that you wouldn’t normally see in any contest, like J.B. Gillet and Bobby Worrest, who ended up in the top three.

We broke them into heats as best as we could, but some guys bailed out and others showed up last minute, so it was tough to keep the heats balanced. Some had three, some four, and others five skaters in them, and they each got to skate eight, 10, and 12-minute jams respectively. The three ledges were skated in a row as a line and the contestants were judged on their best three-trick combo.

It was a tough Qualifier round because we were only taking the top three to the Finals to compete for the $15,000. However, we did have some extra cash to hand out to some deserving rippers, insuring that they didn’t go home empty-handed.

I want to give a shout-out to the following skaters because they didn’t make the cut, but were truly a pleasure to watch:

• Jack Curtin – you don’t see this dude skating too many contests, but his switch fs nosegrinds were on point and he surprised everyone with the switch bs heelflip tailslide fakie. Stevie was there cheering him on
• Benny Fairfax – a recent addition to the professional ranks, Benny skates fast and solid. We tried to get Stereo Co-Captain Jason Lee to rip, but he ignored the request
• Eli Reed – Zoo York’s newest recruit surprised the hell out of us at last summer’s Manny Mania. He couldn’t land the switch pop shove-it to krooks, but we know he’s got it

Qualifying in the top three spots were Torey Pudwill, Bobby Worrest, and Joey Brezinski. I can’t say that I was surprised at all, but I will say it was a surprise that Bobby even skated the Contest. I see him around pretty regularly and he’s a class act, so it was cool to see him show the skills in public.

Torey, Bobby, and Joey skated in a 15-minute jam for the Finals. And then when time was up we gave them three more un-timed shots at landing their lines. Here’s how it ended up:

• 3rd – Joey Brezinski - $2000 – Joey purposely didn’t hang out at ASR prior to the Contest because he wanted to do well…and it paid off nicely. It’s difficult to read the judges’ notes, but I think that Cliché’s finest had a inward heelflip manny, fakie inward heelflip to bs tailslide fakie, and a nose manual nollie heel out in the run that he landed
• 2nd – Bobby Worrest - $3000 – the only thing that would have made Bobby’s line any better would have been Mark Gonzales being there to cheer him on, but we had to settle for the switch bs tailslide, kickflip fs tailslide, and nollie fs nosegrind without the presence of The Gonz
• 1st – Torey Pudwill - $10,000 – that’s quite a chunk of change for skating some ledges on a Saturday afternoon. His winning line was a buttery-long bs tailslide, kickflip bs noseblunt, and nollie krooks, so the judges didn’t even need to look at the other two lines that he landed

The placings were announced, checks were handed out, and The Sorcerer parted with his dearly coveted sword. Thanks to Tony E. and our friends at Podium and ASR for the space to make it happen. The lights went out, the Show closed down, and the SPoTlight crew went out for some drinks prior to departure. See you guys back here in September.

Ryan