Maryhill was a blast! We had competitors from all over the world. Including competitors from Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and even countries like Thailand and Venezuela.
Canada downhill skateboard communities seems to be the biggest at the time, followed by the Americans. This was the greatest experience for me and the greatest time I ever had.
The event was held in Goldendale, Washington at the Maryhill Historic Loops Road. For me going to Maryhill to do downhill skateboarding and bombing hills is like going to Costa Rica to surf. We drove in the Madrid Skateboards van from Los Angeles, CA while picking up some of the riders on our way up to Washington.
The crew consisted of the Daggers: Andrew Mercado, Juan Pablo Porras, Brody from Tuctown, Josh Rolf, Loui Pelloni, Tim Del Rosario, Canadians Patrick Switzer, Katie Neilson and Haven Anderson. In our way to Washington we stop in as many great skate parks we could find and shred. Some of us were not as good as others at the skate parks but Andrew Mercado and Loui Pelloni were killing it. We stayed two days in the San Francisco area to meet with fellow downhill riders James Kelly, Boogie, Noah Sakamoto, JM Duran and other locals from the area. We camped out one of the nights at a local skate park and raged and skate all night.
We woke up early that next morning and went to bomb surf town Bolinas. This was one of the best technical hills I ever rode. Downhill rider “Boogie” set up and participated in an outlaw race at Tunnel Road that day. Patrick Switzer showed his Downhill Canadian skills by taking the win. Unfortunately, I lost the speedboard that I was planning on using at Maryhill during a couple of runs at a Bolinas Hill. I had my back up board ready to use in case of an emergency but the set up on the board was poor. That night we stayed at Noah’s Sakamoto parent’s camping out in their backyard. Noah’s parent’s Jim and Danielle showed great hospitality. I’m happy for Noah Sakamoto for having such a good hospitable mother and father. Danielle Sakamoto made a delicious dinner for the large downhill rider crew. We all celebrated with Jim and opened up wine bottles for the occasion. I was allowed to use their shower, washer and dryer through out the visit. Thank you Danielle and Jim Sakamoto for the good times.
The next day we left and continued our way. We stopped in a funny small town called Weed. Located at Norcal, close to the Oregon border. We skated that park too.
Tuesday, August 26 we arrived in Goldendale, Washington. That evening. was awesome getting together with all our downhill rider friends. That night was rowdy, we partied all night. Ok now we at Maryhill and its time to practice and get ready for the event. Wednesday, August 27 and Thursday 28 were the practice runs. It was a show, the Australians, Canadians, Europeans and Americans are running wild down the hill. Friday and Saturday were the qualification runs. Only 96 out of 152 speedboarders and an opportunity to make their fastest time to qualify. Sadly to say, I couldn’t qualify but that’s ok. I have the chances to get better and learn from the veterans like Mercado, Switzer, Kelly, Budro and Lundberg to name a few. Everybody is ripping! Actually some of the girls kicked my butt on the qualification runs.
The fastest time was Switzerland’s Martin Siegrist with 3:08 minutes. During Friday’s Maryhill Festival of Speed / IGSA World Championship, Siegrist broke his one year old track record while recording the fastest qualifying time. Wow! recording a time of 3:08.422 seconds and beating his previous track record by 1.622 seconds. Coming in second place was Patrick Switzer of Hanover, Ontario Canada with a 3:10.201 time. Placing third was Mike Zietman of Cape Town, South Africa with a time of 3:10.422. Current IGSA points leader and defending Maryhill Champion Scoot Smith from Pendor Harbor, Canada was fourth with 3:10.467. James Kelly of Sonoma, California placed fifth with a 3:10.746. It was an extremely difficult qualifying session with 152 dowhnill skateboarding qualifying attempts. The next day each skateboarder had a second chance to lower their time with a single best run of the two counting. But the second day with high gusty winds everyone lowered their times. The top 96 skateboarders made it into Sunday’s final eliminations.
Pretty much everyone I met was rad people. I am referring to Team Green, Daggers (team Brown), Landyatchz, Rayne, Colabo, Madrid Skateboards, Sector 9 and the other Downhill skateboarders. Many riders crashed during the qualification runs, maybe because of the gusty wind.
Sunday August 31 was the final racing day. Unfortunately two competitors got a staph infections from road rash. Dagger’s Tim Del Rosario’s road rash caused a serious staph infection which did not allow him to continue the competition. Noah Sakamoto also suffered the same. It seems like this is a big issue for the speedboarding community because we always get roadrashes and now we have to be more careful and aware of the seriousness of this infection. We don’t know how and why this staph infection started but we are researching it to keep riders safe. The semi and final run was fun to watch. The winner Canadian Scoot Smith won the competition and my friend James Kelly from California came in 2nd. Martin Siegrist from Switzerland took third place.
Congratulations to everyone who competed and made this possible.
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