Oregon Trifecta 2006 - Newberg: Skip to Results - See also Lincoln City - West Linn             Want to comment on this article?

Weary. Weary. Weary. Just as I almost couldn’t drag myself to the third day of the Trifecta, I’ve had an even harder time finishing the third day’s coverage. To top it all off, I took a bunch of crappy photos. To make up for it, I’ve emphasized quantity over quality. and I’ve gone outside my one ones and zeros to enlist the help of local photog Brock, who takes a mean picture. His stuff is at the end, so skip to it if you want.

The third day of the Trifecta always seems like the longest. Newberg never fails to line up what seems like an enormous pool of kids for the locals part of the contest. It’s always hot too. It’s not exactly the best place for a contest because it is just too spread out. It takes a skater longer to get from one obstacle to the other as a result. It’s a blast to skate, and can accommodate more skaters thatn your typical Northwest park, but it can make for a slow paced contest.

On the upside, there is some serious vert there that you don’t get to see in most parks. It gives the guys at the top levels a chance to really stretch out and blow some minds. Lot’s of families come out to the Newberg day cause it lends itself to picnic-style setups for spectators. All in all it’s kind of a lazy day for the crowd, but the skating usually kicks into high gear as the sun starts to go down.

Ladies. I saw the ladies contest. I thought I might have missed it but thankfully they did the little kids first. All eyes were on a particular skater named Halo, hailing from Skatopia and dressed like a PG-13 rated Super Girl. Some thought she was entereing a different type of amateur contest. Of course I only got a blurry shot, the sun having affected my photography brain. There are some other shots of her floating around the Interweb but they are all shot from a pervy-stalker viewpoint, so I can’t post them without feeling creepy. UPDATE: It's always nice when you can reach out and touch someone's life... I got an email from Halo, here's part of what she had to say on the subject.

"I am sick of perverts that skip creativity to feed their own conformist views of how one should or shouldn't act/dress. As a grant writer, college student, and mother, I don't get the chance to do what I got to do this summer on my vacation at the Trifecta. Skating all of my girls from the West coast and Arizona (at least they liked my outfit) it was like a reunion - not worrying about paperwork, homework... or anything. Or so I thought, now I see that I do have to worry. Innocent fun is no longer allowed. I have to worry that there is someone out there being perverted and judgemental. What is this world coming to?"

Well said, Halo. Thanks for taking the time to make a point. I was trying to think of a clever way to say "A bunch of pervy dudes were staring at Halo." and that's what I came up with.

Warm up for the Grand Masters brought the biggest buzzkill of the event. Local hero Mark Conahan was in the deepest, darkest part of the capsule coming down from a frontside air and t-boned Salba who was charging in full speed. Mark was unconscious before he hit the ground. His helmet and glasses exploded off his head and he lay face down and drooling on the concrete with heavy ragged breathing. Fortunately there was a local fireman and our local EMT certified Steve Grover on the scene. A couple of us were down there with him right away. As the two medically trained guys started to check him out, people would arrive and tell everyone not to move him, to which I would reply These guys are a fireman and an EMT, they know what they are doing. This must have happened at least 5 times. A somewhat shell-shocked Steve Alba was genuinely concerned for Mark’s well being. You could tell he felt bad, and he kept saying he didn’t see him in there. Mark regained consciousness somewhere between 3-5 minutes later, and wiggled his toes for the medical guys, so I started snapping pictures.

An ambulance arrived and took Mark a couple of blocks away to an park where a helicopter arrived and flew him to Portland. He had a CAT scan and was released within a couple of hours of the incident. He called in to my cellphone and explained that he was trying to convince his wife to drive him back to the park. Lo and behold, he actually showed up, still in hospital gear. He seemed a little out of it, but we were all stoked to see him. They even told him he could go to sleep. A week and a half has passed, and Mark is still not quite the same guy. He showed up to skate one day without his pads, something he never does.. It didn’t stop him from ripping, hitting some big airs an invert. He said he felt like he had been drinking, but it didn’t show. Since then he’s been a little forgetful, and he says he still feels a bit odd. He has managed to milk the situation for posts and comics on his blog, so his creative juices are flowing. I even hear he got a polite email from Salba himself. What a nice young man.

So what else happened? Expanded results are here. Red would occasionally barge a heat oblivious to all. Duncan would say "Red, It's not your heat" about 5 times before he gave up. Not much for decorum, Red decided since he built it, he could skate whenever he wanted, which was kind of funny. He also dropped in off a ladder on the big banked wall. That's burly. There was some sort of altercation on the sidelines involving a potentially inebriated spectator. Drunk people are funny. Tim Johnson won this event last year, he looked to be a favorite again. Local big ollie king Gar Wright stepped it up on his home park, stoking the regulars for sure. Another local kid Bubba Al-Hout had some impressive moments. Seems like only 5 years ago he was a tiny kid with a broken arm. Actually, he was. Now he's a beefy teenager. Charnoski won the Grand Masters, edging out Cabellero to deny him the hat trick.

Rune Glifberg was injured but still skating. Benji Galloway, Tim Johnson and Omar Hassan all seemed like obvious contenders. Enter local Mason Huggins. He has been competing in these things for years, and wins a lot of the smaller scale contests. Recently he’s been getting stiff competition from that smooth character you know as Steve Reeves. Reeves has kind of blown up and eclipsed Huggins. In the past it seems like Huggins didn’t get respect either because he was a pad wearing adolescent or just wasn’t flamboyant enough. Well, he’s traded his pads for pubes, and he finally got his day in the spotlight with the heavies. He ended up winning the Newberg Corn Cup, and from the rowdiness of his friends and crew known as the SCROTES, they couldn’t have been any happier for him. It was a nice way to end an otherwise anticlimactic day three. The energy that the SCROTES (WTF?) had poured out into the crowd who was stoked to see a local win the event. As the crowd dispersed there was a sense of community with the riders and event staff and hangers-on like myself.

This year’s event was much smoother than last year, and apart from the Conahan/Salba incident, there was less drama. The powers that be really need to get handle on the lack of a head to head finals heat and stop separating it into two heats. I don’t know how you can possibly judge that accurately, and it’s anticlimactic and less interesting for the spectators. It’s also got to be unsatisfying for the skaters. All the officials need to do is run a tighter ship and reign in the announcer a little and they will have plenty of time for the extra heat. Maybe the officials’ table should not be so far removed from the MC booth. While you’re at it, get the DJ some new records. It seems like we heard the same songs over and over again all weekend. Hesher Metal, AC DC during the Ladies, and some pseudo reggae and hip-hop in between heats. Literally the same songs every day. Ugh. Plug in an iPod and mix it up a little next time.

There were tales of all sorts of extracurricular madness as well, involving such nefarious characters as Duane Peters, Red, and Olson getting arrested and making escapes. Fist fights at parties with guys getting thrown off balconies, you know… good times.

Contests are what they are. They are not the core of skateboarding, but they have their uses. Sure there is a lot of bureaucratic and tedious nonsense, but on the other hand it brings people together from different geographies and showcases some great skating. The competition can push things to a phenomenal level on occasion. Contests are not going away. They are an interesting diversion for some. What confuses me is when guys like Peters and Olson show up and then blow off the contest. If you don’t like the contest scene, why follow it around to the parks instead of traveling to them during less congested times. Perhaps it’s because they tend to get treated like royalty. Who knows who will show up next year. Thanks to Mike Estes again for help with the names and to Brock usage of his photos. I swear I won’t be able to go three days again, unless I start working on my contest runs now. See you next year. Until then, beware of Salba.

Oregon Trifecta 2006 - West Linn: Skip to Results - See also Lincoln City - West Linn
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photos © kilwag