It’s once again time for the Oregon Trifecta. Outside of the arena events, the Trifecta is the highest profile skateboarding events in Oregon. Last year’s event raised the bar from one World Cup Event to three consecutive days. Trifecta! Duh. When the dust settled in ’04 there were a few gripes about some of the judging and the heavy manners of the Aumsville Gestapo/Police, but the intense skating during the Jam format, particularly in West Linn, made it seem like the Trifecta was finally going to put Oregon on the contest map. With the City of Aumsville preemptively backing out of this year’s event, day three was moved to Newberg, and the biggest possible obstacle to fun seemed to be overcome. Everyone expected bigger and better. However, Volcom covered a large part of costs last year. As a recent new publicly traded company, corporate bean counters decided not to fund the purse as heavily, leaving local scenester Choppy Omega to foot more of the bill.*
Highlights:
The skating, of course. The local fields were huge this year. So each day witnessed the non-ranked entries being fed through quick jams in meat grinder fashion in order to thin the herds for the final heats. The jam format, though potentially difficult to judge effectively, is always exciting to watch. A few of the locals really stepped it up. Also, gone this year was the constant P.A. system reminders of how certain skaters invented everything back in the day and are still the most hardcore today. Very refreshing. Everyone deserves their due, to be sure, but nobody wants to be browbeaten into it. I’m not going to say that Duncan reads this site, but hey we did mention how annoying that was last year.
Did I mention the skateboarding? Fun! The regulars did their thing well but the excitement was focused on kids like a young Chaz Pineda from Huntington Beach California who blew up in the finals at Lincoln City to take 3rd place. Local favorites that stoked the crowd included Steven Reeves, Mason Huggins, and Lance Leisher. David Gravette took a board to the teeth at Lincoln City, a board to the head in West Linn, and a slam on his chin in Newberg. His back and arms were covered in scabs. Through it all he kept skating harder. By the end of the day on Sunday he looked like Frankenstein, but still came in 7th place. Also notable was Steven Reeves barging the middle of last heat at West Linn after realizing that although he signed up, nobody ever called his name and he wanted to get judged. Duncan was yelling at him over the P.A., asking who he was and telling him it wasn’t his heat. Reeves kept shouting his name and skated through the whole exchange without missing a beat.
Before I get into it too much here, it’s important to remember that all organized contests suck in some way or form. There will always be a difference in opinion over judging, some rules that people won’t like, or someone in charge that rubs people the wrong way. As with last year, a lot of heavy rippers didn’t even bother to enter because this sort of thing just isn’t there scene. So it should be a given that contests do not represent the heart of skateboarding, especially in Oregon. Given that, if you’re going to promote and hype and event, at least give it the respect that the venue and skaters deserve, which brings us to…
Lowlights:
Promoter arrives several hours late to the event on a day with a strict ending deadline, proceeds to kick everyone off the deck, including photographers (well me, actually) because he doesn’t “give a fuck about media and pictures” and then goes and takes a three hour nap in the middle of contest. The World Cup crew eventually decides to soldier on without Choppy, but in the meantime a lot of entrants got bored and left. As they tried to make up for lost time, heats were started without warm-ups, and without even announcing everyone in it until the word go! Several riders were scrambling to wake up and warm up. Several got left behind. The announcers need to look up the definition of the word “finals” in the dictionary. Every heat can not be the actual “finals.” While the skating was still hot, there was not the gradual build up in intensity and the final explosion of talent that there was in last years West Linn event. Instead there was a lot of waiting and boredom followed by confusion and hurried haphazardness, followed by a collective “so that’s it?” In Newberg the top results were pulled from the scores from two separate final heats with different groups, with no final jam. Of Course every contest has the usual judging complaints. One judge was overheard saying that he didn’t care what moves someone was pulling if they were wearing pads, which was fortunately ignored in the masters and women’s divisions. I’m sure the judges did their best, though. You can’t please everyone all the time. I don’t envy their job. One judge was allegedly relieved of duty for not being in step and/or being drunk. Let’s see… what else? Oh yeah, prize money? Not everyone got paid. It’s important to note that World Cup Skateboarding and Volcom were there, but they weren’t the ones cutting the checks at this event.
Summary:
From an organizational standpoint and for whatever reasons, this year’s event was a bit of disappointment. Instead of building on last year’s excitement, it actually lost ground. To be sure, there was some hard riding going on as evidenced by some of these pictures as well as the ones I didn’t get. (I’m often a shit photographer.) Hopefully this is just a speed bump and next year’s Trifecta, if there is one, will be more on track.
(*Whoah… These days it’s hard to tell who is behind the curtain. There are a lot of people who come together to make these events possible. Volcom, World Cup, Omega Entertainment, and the volunteers. I’ve been getting an earful from different sides and the recurring theme is that I’m make some good points and there are some concerns about the event, but some of my criticisms may be unwarranted. While I’m not going to retract anything, I am going to point out that Volcom did pour a lot of money and effort into the event, and remains committed to the Oregon Trifecta 100%. They hope to build momentum for next year. World Cup Skateboarding has a heavy schedule, so there are bound to be the occasional SNAFUs. Let’s face it, contest results are ultimately not important in the big picture. My hyper-critical analysis aside, the Trifecta remains a fun event with some great skating, first and foremost. Looking forward to it next year – if they let me back in that is…)
The Results and the Pictures:
At the time this was posted, World Cup Skateboarding didn’t have the results posted, and there were conflicting spellings on Skateboarder Magazine, The World Cup Print outs, and the Oregon Trifecta web site, which also has some screwed up formatting, listing Red and Tim Johnson in fourth place at Lincoln City, for example. What you get here are the results and spellings as best can be determined. Follow the links for the pictures too. What I lack in quality I make up for in quantity, and the quality is huge. Enjoy!
Next: Lincoln City
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