got dirt

May 5th 2006

Another crazy competition day in Adelaide, held indoors at Wayville Showgrounds.
5m tall scaffold tower, with a 45% drop plus a vertical drop in, leading into three
big sets, wall ride, back into two sets then a dirt spine.

The course was designed by legendry MC Kenny Raggett, and Mike Daly from
Kickass BMX. The event was made possible through Freestlye BMX, BMX Australia
and 20/20BMX, with sponsorship through Kodak, Elite Cycle Imports, Federal,
Standish, Redline, Maxxis Tyres and Proper Bike Co.

The course took 4 guys (Kenny, Mike, Dwayne and I) about 20 hours to build, plus
a few morehours in fine tuning and repairs, using I think about 3,000 tons of perfect
clay mix.

By Friday afternoon riders hitting the jumps for practice included the likes of old man Russell
(the love muscle) Tranter, Andrew Gul, Luke Weatherall, Shane Conlon, PJ, Cam Pianta,
Kie Ashworth, Ben Miels, Dane Searls & more, with some seriously big tricks going down.

Front flips, massive doublewhips, all kinds of crazy links - I had never seen anything like
it - these guys have some seriously BIG BALLS and skills to boot !

Andrew Gul re-injured his knee and didnt compete, but not before laying down consistent killer runs
during practice.

The Comp format was a head to head battle, the riders were split into pairs and had 3 runs through
the jumps to show their skills. The winner for each round progressed to the next and so on right
through to the final. This format saw some interesting results with consistency and planning your
runs taking a big part in the results.

Kenny was on the mic with Matt Holmes, with Mike Daly, Jamie from Stowaway and injured Daniel
Dunn as judges.

The Amateur competition blew people away with riders like eventual winner Lee Robertson nailing
nose dive 360's into 360 tweaked turndowns, Ben Miels doublewhipping and David Baker the spine
flipping machine, I believe it was Stephen Cole who also landed a front flip over the first set.

Moving into the finals saw some definate upsets with riders getting knocked out despite pulling massive
tech, clean runs. Luke Weatherall and Cam Pianta were definately looking good for a final showdown, but
in the end it was old man Mr Consistent Dwayne Golding against Josh Stead. Josh took top honours with
smooth linked tech runs and 'oppo' variations.

This was the first time I had seen some of these guys ride, and I'd have to say this was the best designed
competition course in Aus. and these guys had the skills to put it to the test.

Pro Results
8th Shane Conlan
7th Dane Searls
6th PJ Mackellar
5th Damian Connolly
4th Luke Weatherall
3rd Cam Pianta
2nd Dwayne Golding
1st Josh Stead

Am Results
8th Brock Viner
7th Dean Makey-Starr
6th Dan Rosenthal
5th Tim Dougherty
4th David Baker
3rd Stephen Cole
2nd Ben Miels
1st Lee Robertson

Great work guys!

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