The format for the show was the brainchild of Andy Ruffell, a.k.a. Holeshot Promotions. Organisation was down to UKBMX and Cohn Kefford and co-sponsorship was down to Holeshot and your fave magazine BMX Action Bike. The name of the game was to discover the No 1 freestyler in the UK in both Expert and Masterclass. Every class freestyler, every top name in the UK showed for the event. In all 60 Expert class riders and 29 Masterclass riders entered. In between rounds there were demos by the Ruff and Craig Strong plus the totally insane BMX Action Bike auction.
The judges quickly reduced the 60 Experts to a final 23 by having everyone run through routine where you had to pull off (in this order): a framestand, a wheelstand, a switcharound, front hops, rollback, rampstall, kickturn and an aerial. Bread & butter stuff but it was surprising how many characters missed out or messed up a rollback and failed to collect 10 easy points. Coming out of the qualifiers Ammaco's mini-wonder Steve 'Macky' McIntosh riding an 18 inch freestyler was holding down first place.
One of those who made it into the Expert final was Robert Ruffell, twin of Neil and younger bro of Andy. A racer at heart Rob couldn't resist having a go. He had a neat line in balance tricks and in true Ruffell style, kept 'em simple and perfect and made 'em look easy. Maybe too easy 'cos the judges placed him 7th. A lot of the expert routines were mighty similar. The favourite was to roll in with a barpress, coolly slideback into the saddle and hit the big flash Rickman ramp (not much change out of 600 smackers said the rumours) with a bonzai aerial then move circus-style into a bunch of balance tricks--just like Skyway's Petersen was laying on us last summer. Anyone who was different stood out. Like Southsea Skatepark Whitehawk Jamie Morley. Wheelstands are his speciality. He treats a tyre like it's a curve. But even he couldn't come close to Macky. He was a total crowd stealer. His 1 1/2 minutes was packed with action, barpresses, barstands, trackstands, supersmooth roll-backs and clever wheelwalkers. It started making you wonder exactly what Masterclass was going to be like if this was how the Experts performed.
First the Masterclass had a minute routine. It proved too short- Some concentrated on ground tricks and for a time nobody used the ramps.The way to score high here was to squeeze in as many moves as possible. Making runs at ramps consumes vital seconds. DP's Glyn Lewis had it sussed. Rolling in on a barpress he went centrestage and produced fronthops, backhops, even a one-footed one-handed sidehop before moving into a whole series of peg tricks. By staying on the same spot he had enough time to roll end to end for a couple of humungus aerials that had him floating high above the Holeshot banner. He overcooked and wiped but with the judges marking more for radness GL went into the lead spot at the end of the first round.
For the second and final round everyone had the chance to extend their act to 2 minutes and run it to music of their choice. Freestyle taste varies everything from Frankie GTH , ELP, Thriller right through to Tina Turner.
Billy Stupple drew the unlucky No 1 spot. He pulled a stupple, several wicked aerials and a totally cool one-handed one-footed kickturn. But because it's death to go first in a freestyle comp --the judges always mark low to start-- Billy didn't have a chance.
Terry Jenkins in third position after the first round (and some hot frontwheel 540s) showed that he'd lost none of his edge since quitting Torker to move to Haro. Despite having been out of competition for nearly six months his second routine was full of supersmooth 360s, 540s, spacy framestand and spooky aerials. He moved into the N°1 slot. But only for a short while.
The favourite Skyway's Craig Campbell was in bad shape. After a wobbly first round he was lying 8th. But with Ghostbusters belting out the PA he proceeded to wipe out the memory of the earlier performance accelerating into it with a barpress, a one handed 360, a magic framestand air, and a frontwheel 360 on the ramp. As bad as his opening sesh was, this one was brill. It was inspired hyper stuff: on the ground with reverse frontwheel barhop and in the air with, of course, an ace footplant that had the crowd yelling for more.
Two mins later it was Ghostbusters again and current leader Glyn Lewis. After that earlier tangle with the ramp he's itching for another go and doesn't put quite enough into his main ground moves and heads for the ramp. Its OK with the crowd but not with the judges. Glyn drops back and Craig Campbell moves into the lead. After that nobody comes close. King of the Skateparks Craig is £160 richer and now he's got the UKBMX British Freestyle Championship tag to add to his collection of titles.
Super cool,super controlled framestand from Terry Jenkins.
Fakie air framestand from Craig Campbell.
Masters results:
1.Craig Campbell
2.Terry Jenkins
3.Paul Hudson
4.Glyn Lewis
5.Robert Bell
6.Neil Ruffell
7.Andy Irwin
8.John McInnes