Home  Past Events Snickers Bowl Snickers Bowl, Donington, England
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Snickers Bowl, Donington, England |
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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 16 June 2006 |
with Guns 'n Roses on stage!!!
Story courtesy of FATBMX.com-Bart DeJong
Photos by Steve Swope
 Download main stage-180,000 people Fri-Sun!!!
This Snickers Bowl report is fashionably late. But what is
late? It's Monday after the contest as I'm typing this up. Spending 5
hours at the London Heathrow airport has its advantages. Good thing I
brought the laptop. The photos are already prepared in the right size
and all I need is a little text now of what happened and some internet
connection. The latter will only be available when I'm back home so
please bear with me for a few hours. How cool would it be if
there was free wireless worldwide. Updates could come from anywhere
that way as long as there's a power socket nearby and I've got the
right plug. The hotel actually had internet but after the competition
it was time for some Guns 'n Roses and then the hotel bar/lobby for
hours of DMC tales straight from the horses mouth. Classic stories, I tell you.
 Baz Keep  Download Fans watching the England WC match on Sat  Matt Fairbairn, double b-spin  Kraft  Keep
But the reason we were in Donington was the Snickers Bowl contest. It
was an invite only competition for BMX and skateboarding and the Bowl
was set up in the middle of the Download festival that had bands
playing all day long. Thousands of people showed up and I mean
THOUSANDS.
{mosimage}  Joe Rich, 2nd Annual Manuel contest  Ruben, 1st Annual Manuel Contest
You
could easily spend a day watching people get drunk and rock on. By the
end of the day most Brits had a sunburn and by the end of the weekend
those who camped out weren't exactly reaking FA Fresh. Who cares, it's
a festival, a reason to go wild.
 Dejong Bros manuel measure  Kraft double whip   Chris Mahoney, Winner of the UK Friday comp.
The
Snickers Bowl event is a comp where the skateboarders and BMX-ers do
get along nicely. BMX-ers watch the skateboarding and the other way
around showing respect to both worlds. Tony Alva and Christian Hosoi both made it over and gave a speach or two. One more fitting than the other, especially at a metal festival. Diaz, Patch, Horrwarth, Galloway, Ueda, Lasek, 909 Hassan, Hendrix all made for a good show but I figure you are waiting to hear what happened on the BMX side.
 Mahoney  Joe Rich-over the extention  Rich & Keep  Rich-Pocket
The 9 people who qualified for the finals on Sunday were: Dennis McCoy (Vans/Brigade), Tom Stober (GT Bikes), Zach Shaw (Vans/Oakley), Matt Fairbairn (Mongoose), Bas Keep (Hoffman Bikes), Koji Kraft (Oakley/Cardboard Lords), Simon Tabron (Mongoose), Joe Rich (Terrible One) and Jimmy Walker (SCRAP).
A jam format session on order was the system for the competition. This
made for as many runs for everyone and was still clear for the crowd
and the judges to see what was going on.
 Soul Bowl Rockers   Download fans, 10:AM and 4 beers in  Ruben  Ruben-tire slide
At 39 years old Dennis McCoy hasn't
lost one bit of his competitiveness and blasted big airs right from the
first drop in. His 540-s and flairs were pulled at pretty much the same
height and if you're a DMC fan, you'll be happy to hear he pulled a
couple of lip tricks too. Some with a bitch crank or two but that's
exactly how we like to see it from "D".
 Zach Shaw  Tom Stober  Stober
Tom Stober rode
really well on Sunday and blasted clean double whips, superman
seatgrabs, alley-oop no-handers over the elbow and one-footed seatgrab
barspins that looked pretty trick. It was a bit up and down for a bowl
contest but the runs were clean, the height was there and the
variations as well. Yup, he did flairs too, almost forgot.
 Stober  Stober-one foot-seat grab-bspin  Tabron, nothing as serious as the eyes of a vert rider about to roll in  Tabron-Hoffman can
Matt Fairbairn deserves the tough as nails award over the weekend. In fact, Koji Kraft
was up there too but for Koji that's just another weekend on the ramp.
Matt ate it bad with big hang-ups over the elbow. It's just a different
style of riding and adjusting to it over just one weekend is pretty
tough. The Aussie blasted big inverts, did sweet suicide no-handers,
540-s with a barspin (!), x-up to barspin to x-up and double barspins.
Throw a tailwhip or two in there and you've got yourself some BMX
entertainment.
 Tabron  Jimmy Walker  Rich, Best trick comp, giant pocket air seqence
Grand daddy Zach Shaw needed
a little warm up getting to his favorite height. Once there his inverts
were held until he touched the ramp and his body jars are something
else. Flairs too for Zach and the longer he kept riding, the more
tricks came back including the no-footed cancan and no-footer to
one-footed invert.
Watching Bas Keep ride
is a treat. He makes things look easy while he blasts big airs from
left to right and from right to left. He's definitely got the height
and style and his tricks include tailwhips, no-handers, opposite
lookbacks and opposite one-handed one-footers. His 12 foot inverts are
my favorite though. So stylish.
 Rich pocket 2
Koji Kraft
is entertainment. Koji Kraft is every air to switch hander. Koji Kraft
is crashing big time. Koji Kraft is getting back up for more. Koji
Kraft is 20 pound piece of cardboard. The tricks that Koji fires off
when he drops in are insane. He needs the height for all the tricks he
throws in there at the same time. It's a bit of Chad Harrington
on vert but going over the moves he just did you realize that it was
hard shit. Take the stretched no-hander to switch-hander for example.
Many would be stoked on the no-hander alone but Koji adds a switch
hander to it on the way down. So scary. Also frightening was his double
barspin attempt. He totally missed his bars on his way in but somehow
rolled out of it with his bars backwards. Almost shit my pants.
Turndown flairs: check. Opposite 540: check. Double tailwhips: check.
He's got the big tricks too.
Simon Tabron
just put together a new RAF bike that he had painted black and all the
brake lugs were removed. You see, Si rides brakeless and doesn't need
all the Gyro tabs and stuff on his bike. Simon did straight up inverts
in the pockets and also 540-d the corners of the bowl. His cancans are
truely Hoffman style and the flow he's got is nice to
watch. Even if he's riding brakeless and with no pegs, he's got full
bike control. No-hand to turndown 540-s and no-hand to no footed 540-s
were both pulled but the extension on the no-footer could use a bit of
foampit practice. Wait a minute, Si is foampit-free so he'll have to
find a local metal ramp, concrete ramp or wooden set-up to work on it.
It is pretty safe to say that the finals had one real bowl rider in it. It was Joe Rich.
The T-1 rider doesn't ride much up and down vert and it showed. He was
one with the bowl and was riding it all weekend long as much as
possible. He used the corners to get speed and didn't seem to get lost
carving around the ramp. Joe carved over the extension, did pocket airs
and still blasted 7 feet turndowns and lookbacks. He had some problems
in the final and couldn't fully get it together. The ramp had become a
bit dusty (slippery) which seemed to be okay for the other riders who
went up and down but with Joe's cornering speed it was actually getting
hard for him to stay straight up.
 Rich, pocket 3  Rich, pocket 4  Rich, pocket 5  Rich, pocket 6  Rich, pocket 7  Rich, pocket 8
 Jimmy Walker definitely
impressed me with his riding. He's got a similar ramp set-up at home
(Scrap skatepark) and I believe Jimmy was the person having the least
problems adjusting to the Snickers Bowl. Jimmy fired out no-handed
flairs and also turndown flairs among other tricks such has x-ups,
toboggans, no-handers to turndown, no-footed seatgrabs, smooth opposite
lookback airs and came close to winning this gig.
When the comp was over there was a hard trick contest with money for top 5. Prize money was ridiculously good which is nice. Thanks Snickers.
Chris Mahoney pulled an alley-oop flair in the elbow section of the bowl for a couple hundred bucks. DMC did a barspin 720 tire tap (to fakie) for fourth. Third went to Fairbairn
who was already feeling really sore from all the crashed he had
suffered but gave it one more shot and pulled a double barspin to x-up
for 3rd place. He then continued in the 20 minute best trick session
and crashed a barspin 540 super hard. His girlfriend had told him not
to ride best trick but the $ 1000,= USD for third place will get her a
new bag and a pair of shoes so both are happy. In the last 5 minutes of
the jam Simon Tabron fired out a rad no-handed to turndown 540 and added another 900 to his list. The crowd went nuts but it was Koji Kraft who got the biggest check. His double tailwhip to full x-up won the $ 2250,= USD cardboard check. Sweet.
Thanks to the HSA, IMG and Snickers for the good weekend. Rock on.
BdJ
Main Competition Results:
1 Simon Tabron
2 Jimmy Walker
3 Tom Stober
4 Koji Kraft
5 Sebastian Keep
6 Joe Rich
7 Matt Fairbairn
8 Dennis McCoy
9 Zach Shaw
10 Chris Mahoney
11 Jon Taylor
12 Owain Clegg
13 Ruben Alcantara
BMX Best Trick Results
1 Koji Kraft Double Tail whip to X-up
2 Simon Tabron 900
3 Matt Fairbairn X-up to double bar spin
4 Dennis McCoy Barspin 720 tire tap to fakie
5 Chris Mahoney Alley oop flair through the elbow
BMX Competition Snickers Bowl, Donington Sunday 11 June, 2006
BMX Annual Manual Results
1 Ruben Alcantara
2 Jon Taylor 28m
3 Joe Rich 26.5m
4 Dennis McCoy 21.4m
5 Matt Fairbairn 9.3m
6 Simon Tabron 1.2m
UK Friday Friday 9 June, 2006 Snickers Bowl, Donington EVENT RESULTS:
UK BMX
1. Chris Mahoney
2. Ben Wallace
3. Toby Gresswell
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