Red Bull Snowscrapers
The Sprocking Cat and pals tear up NYC as Red Bull erects one mother of a hip on the city’s streets.
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Terje Haakonsen has proven himself in nearly every facet of snowboarding. So, unsurprisingly, it takes a lot to get this 34-year-old Norse god to leave his Scandinavian kingdom for a contest these days. But when word came across the Atlantic that Red Bull would feature an air event in the heart of a pulsing cultural centre, he was there.
“I came because it’s New York,” the legend explained, returning to the 90-foot in-run, during Red Bull Snowscapers. “It’s got really good food, music, shopping, and the people. Plus when I heard it was a hip, I knew it was something I could relate too.”
Despite an A++ list of invitees launching for a $50,000 purse, in the collective mind of the snowboard world this event was all about location.
And this certainly was some roll call, with Terje, Travis Rice, Scotty Lago, Andreas Wiig, Pat Moore, Torstein, and Double D. But it was more about said riders careening through the NYC night - the skyline of the iconic city that gave us hip hop, street skating, Lower East Side rock, legendary graff crews, and countless other elements that have influenced snowboard culture – than it was about TTR points, anyway.
Including the aforementioned kingpins, 16 riders in all (from backcountry cowboys to rail hustlers and comp jocks) descended on East River Park on February 5, for a step-up-to-spine hip jump. Literally thousands of New Yorkers came out to gawk at this first-of-its-kind event.
Things opened with a one-hour jam session, in which the judges advanced 8 riders based on an overall impression. Air was an issue. The in-run was originally designed to be 130 feet, but the proverbial ‘Man’ wouldn’t permit any structure over 90-feet. (Perhaps cases of Red Bull on the steps of City Hall don’t even move the machine.)
“It’s just all about speed,” said Wiig, “Everyone makes speed differently. You have to use every little bump.”
There was much concern among the riders, who felt the flats should have been shortened to account for the lower in-run. A few used a winch and rope, known as the Grinch, for speed. “I didn’t like the rope. I just use two big men,” offered Wiig, referring to the guys whipping the boys into the run - a method Wiig calls ‘man hands.’
The remaining 8 went mano-a-mano from there on. Horgmo and Travis Rice made quick work of Blanco and Bjorn Leines, Rice busting out the alley oop, truck driver rodeo early on.
Next Shayne Pospisil, the most local of the finalists (he grew up in a surf household on the nearby Jersey Shore) upended Terje, who sketched on a backside method backflip. But Terje wasn’t leaving NYC without a souvenir, and promptly busted a one-footed method for Best Trick (and an NYC shot glass).
Scotty Lago’s ‘cleanest 9 in the game’ iced Daniel Elk. And Torstein got the best of Rice in the semi, while Pos managed a 9 up to the Williamsburg Bridge that was somehow smoother than Lago’s.
Torstein and Pos matched up for a best-of-three showdown. Torstein provided some drama, skidding off the in-run on one attempt and biffing on his last, nearly becoming yet another body at the bottom of the East River.
Pos was pretty much flawless on his backside 9, and his local boys let him know it, as they stormed the snow. No sooner did he accept his earnings, than Anthrax took the stage with Chuck D to round off a night that can only happen in NYC.
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Red Bull Snowscrapers (text) by Jon Coen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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