Date: april 17-18, 1993.
Place: Recreation center, Shimerville, Pennsylvania
Organisation: Hoffman crew.
Stuntboy: The Jack Kerouac of the nineties, Leif Valin, recently transplanted himself to York. His riding shows it, too. If he keeps riding as well as he did here, he might shoot his underground status all to hell. Second place. To win a flatland contest, you have to have fresh tricks and be able to pull them off when it counts. Sean McKinney can do both. First place.
Stuntmen: Bill Nitschke came on strong early in his run, not touching at all, but a small touch seemed to mess with his head. That, followed by a fall on a whopper, put him into fourth place. Dennis McCoy will never stop riding. When he's forty, he'll still be entering contests. He'll be the old guy in the jam circle telling the kids how "In the nineties, we didn't have self-cleaning brake shoes, we had to clean them by hand!" Third place to DMC who can still ride good for an old fart [footwork]. New pros. This contest was full of new pros. The brand new heavies in flatland were Gabe Weed and Chad Degroot. Gabe won am flat in Chicago and proved it wasn't a fluke with his run here. Tricks like his dump truck coasted forwards to backwards to forwards again helped him nail third place. Chad was riding as well as he ever has. His run was solid, clean, hard, and included tricks like a gyrator to caboose to backward wheelie to caboose again. His second place finish had Chase up in arms. Chase felt Chad should have won for the day. Don't think for a minute that Chase sucked though. His run was filled with hard tricks. He was feeling a bit ill, so his normal Chase punch just wasn't there. First place [Irie, Brah].
STUNTMEN FLAT 1.Chase Gouin $400 2.Chad Degroot $300 3.Gabe Weed $200 4.Dennis McCoy $100 5.Bill Nitschke 6.Jay Miron 7.Mike Noonan 8.Jared Souney
STUNTBOYS FLAT 1.Sean McKinney 2.Leif Valin 3.Sean Peters 4.Todd Gully 5.Brian Huffman 6.Thomas Fritsher
SOON TO BE FLAT 1.David Way 2.Justin Brocius 3.Kevin Bickle
Chad Degroot. Photo by Brad McDonald.
Doses, www.vimeo.com, february 2012: Chase Gouin 1993 Shimersville PA BS Comp
Doses, www.vimeo.com, february 2012: Chad Degroot 1993 Shimersville PA BS Comp
Soon To Be: When it came time to run the Soon To Be, it became very clear that there are a lot of new people riding these days. The class was forty-something riders strong. You might as well kiss the days of "freestyle is dead" goodbye. Another thing that stood out was the amount of people in the building. There were so many spectators watching, it was insane: there were people on the decks, on the ramps, and right in the middle of the street course. It was definitely funny to watch as at least one spectator got nailed every five minutes.
Stuntboy: There isn't that much difference between the am and pro class these days. There were too many rad guys to mention, but I'll do my best.
Joe Hulbert - Entire runs were done with either his feet on the wrong pedals, or bars backwards [nosepicks, grinds, and spine transfers]. He also did a rad nosepick to half-barspin, helping him grab sixth place.
Jon Shaw - Smooth style. Big 360s, 180s, and fast nose wheelies to fifth place.
Jody Donnelly - Airs to 50/50 grind, and a flip attempt from the spine to the funbox to a jacked bike.
Jeff Crawn - In practice, this local looked like the one to beat. Big no handers and 360s over the spine. Plus icepicks on the opposite side of the spine to transfer back over, and icepick grinds over the spine. The worst part about writing about Jeff is there's no way to describe how good he really is. He rocked third place.
Jon Englebert - Another local, 'Luc-E' [pronounced 'Lucky'] tore it up. Busdriver over the spine, spine transfer to icepick to look at the crowd to transfer back over, spine 270 to icepick on the other side, and the biggest trick of the am class, a 180 barspin transfer from the street course to the vert ramp. Despite all this, Luc-E had to settle for second place.
Jon Peacy - After the results were given, Jon offered to give his first place trophy to Luc-E. Don't think Jon didn't jam. Nobody, mean NOBODY rides as fast or as smooth as Jon. Big 540s, feeble grinds to nosepick to nosebonk, and a framegrab 360.
Blood: By the time the pros were up it was 11pm. It had been a long day for the crowd, so at this point they wanted to see some blood. Well, they were gonna get it; only this time it would be their own. I finally got to see why the crowd is so into watching people try to kill themselves. As I stood on the deck, I must have seen ten spectators get smacked hard by riders. The biggest one had to have been the mid-air tango between Hoffman and some "I gotta get a better look spectator. Miron smashed some girl's video camera, then later ran her over again [without her camera this time].
Pro: Leigh Ramsdell and Keith Treanor were the two young guns in the pro class. Both guys rode really rad considering the pressure of standing on the decks with guys like Hoffman and Miron for the first time. Leigh 9th and Keith 7th.
Rob Nolli rode rad, as always, with tailwhips over the spine, bottom-side 50/50 grinds, and tailwhips across the channel from the mini to the street. 8th place.
Bill Nitschke rode a lot better than he would say he ever did. His biggest trick had to be his tailwhip attempt from the street ramp to the vert ramp. He pulled it earlier in the week, but couldn't nail when it counted. 6th place.
Krt Schmidt did his list of progressive lip tricks with few mistakes; spine transfer to 50/50 to fakie, blunt to ice pick to fakie, feeble to toothpick fakie, and a 540 from the mini to the street. 5th place.
I've said it before, when Dennis is hot, he's hot. This weekend must have been about room temperature. He got detuned early on and had trouble shaking it off. A perfect 360 G-turn to nosepick dropin, tailwhip nosepicks, and a flip twist attempt. 4th place money.
An off-day for Matt Hoffman simply means that he didn't win. Matt's off-day included a footplant on a big railing, and a big flip from the spine to the funbox. I wish my off-days were that good. 3rd place.
Dave Mirra was shredding. Tailtap to nosepick to smith back to noseblunt to no-footer on the railing, a clean flip from the mini to the box, and the biggest transfer of the day: a flip from the street course to the vert ramp. He was a good ten feet away from the transitions when he landed on the flat bottom [zany]. 2nd place.
Jay Miron was the man of the hour, hell, he was the man of the year. He is so on these days, it's scary. 360 decade tailtap over the spine, 900 manuals, a Canadian nosepick on the railing in the street course [BIG], and a busdriver from the street to the vert. 1st place to the brand nubian.
SOON TO BE MINI/STREET 1.Michael Skinner 2.Voun Stout 3.Brandon Bowen 5.Keith Gower 9.Mike Ocoboc
STUNTBOYS MINI/STREET 1.Jon Peacy 2.John Luc-E Englebert 3.Jeff Crawn 4.Jody Donnely 5.John Shaw 6.Joe Hurlbert 7.Jim Dellavalle 8.Sandy Carson 9.Mel Cody 10.Joe Rich
STUNTMEN MINI/STREET 1.Jay Miron 2.Dave Mirra 3.Matt Hoffman 4.Dennis McCoy 5.Krt Schmidt 6.Bill Nitschke 7.Keith Treanor 8.Rob Nolli 9.Leigh Ramsdell 10.James Shepard
Jay Miron did the trick of the contest with a canadian style nosepick on the rail.
Dave Mirra flip over the rail.
Stuntboy: Joe Rich, who for some reason didn't place high in mini, showed that the extra five feet of the vert ramp doesn't phase him at all. Hard, progressive lip tricks, plus rad airs took him to third place.
Jon Peacy, who most had hoped would ride pro, opted to stay am for a bit until he fully gets over his leg injury. Airs to the roof, supermans, Canadian nosepicks, high 540s, and a 540 framegrab. All of Jon's tricks were done faster the anyone else's, as always. Second place to the boy from Vista [or wherever he lives now].
John Parker is now the Flavour Of The Month. Big airs, more lip tricks than in the past, a body varial attempt, and several handplant attempts took John to first place.
Stuntmen: There were more pros than ever. 9th place, Dave Brumlow [detuned]; 8th place, Keith McElhinney [no pads]; and 7th place, Kevin Robinson [900 attempt] rounded out the list.
For his first time out, Leigh Ramsdell shredded. Big no footed can-cans and even bigger 540s. After his final run, he looked like he had been in a fist fight [chicks dig scars]. 6th place.
Bob Kohl crashed hard Saturday, which kept him out of mini ramps. He more than made up for it though on vert with tricks like his no handed flip. 5th place.
Dennis McCoy still seemed a little bummed with his mini ramp runs and couldn't get into his zone. He's always rad, but you could tell his psych was just not there.
Dave Mirra was on his game, as usual. No handers almost touching the ceiling, 540s a couple of feet lower, backwards icepick grinds, and a flip attempt. 3rd place.
Matt Hoffman is a name you don't expect to see in second place. But second sure ain't last in pro. A no hander that punched the ceiling, no handed 540, a 360 barspin air, 900 attempts, and a 180 barspin 540. Like I said, second don't mean last.
Jay Miron should have a whole magazine made about him. He's got too many tricks to name. Nosegrind, 360 barspins, big decade airs, 360 barspin 540 [clean], tailwhips, and an almost pulled flip attempt made up his near-perfect runs. With his winning two out of three categories at the last two events, most eyes are on Jay these days. 1st place. There's a new sheriff in town and his name's Jay Miron.
SOON TO BE VERT RESULTS 1.Eddie Rios 2.Ron Smith 3.Mel Cody 7.Mike Ocoboc
STUNTBOYS VERT RESULTS 1.John Parker 2.Jon Peacy 3.Joe Rich 4.Pat Miller 5.Christopher Hallman
STUNTMEN VERT RESULTS 1.Jay Miron $400 2.Matt Hoffman $300 3.Dave Mirra $200 4.Dennis McCoy $100 5.Bob Kohl 6.Leigh Ramsdell 7.Kevin Robinson