Friday, May 24

2002 Basic Bowl BBQ

By George Crosland
EXPN.com

You've got aluminum grinding against pool coping, free beer, top level pro pool skaters, and several hundred friends. Add a lot of adrenaline and you get a crazy day at The 7th Basic Barbeque. Thrown in the spirit of Jams like Terror at Tahoe, Palmdale and Joe's (R.I.P.) These events brought the best skaters together to push the limits in a low key atmosphere. Today was almost chaos but since everyone was cool and having fun it all went off like a firecracker on the 4th. Skating is more business-like now--with all the new big money contests that are good for growing the sport, but it's good to just skate and have fun sometimes.

Eleven year old AM Winner, Chris Grahm, should like his 1st place prize - an HV Snowboard. Yeehaw.

The ten-year old bowl was built for skating by Lido Extreme skateshop owner, Greg Cassel. It's a three-leaf clover shape with four, seven and ten foot deep sections. The bowl is especially gnarly after some ground shifting floated the pool out of the ground, making the deep end over-vert. The decks fell apart as a result of the lifting and rumors flew about the bowls demise but after some hard work the Basic Bowl is back!

The winner is Dave Reul and here he is with an old favorite - the frontside air.

New concrete was poured earlier in the week for the new decks. The 'crete was still fresh but held together through the seriously crazy sh*t that went down. Things started early with a little rain and a Grom contest won by seven-year old Jake Reuter. As the sun came out the amateurs, aged eleven to 40 showed their talent. The crowd was getting unruly as many barged runs during the am finals. Everyone settled down enough for eleven-year old Chris Graham to win. Chris ripped and even beat some veterans. Things were getting insane by the time the pros started abusing the pool. Pretty much anyone who wanted to take runs, did. The announcer got angry, said the contest was over, and left. Contestant Dave Reul took over as MC and told everyone to get the f___ out of the bowl except competitors. The pro group was whittled down to ten around 5:30 p.m. and stuff really went off at that point.

Salba, waiting for the AMs to finish.

The final Jam was complete anarchy. In addition to competitors, about ten others were skating. Four people were in the bowl at once, often running into each other. A moped took a two-minute run; a girl was rolling in barefoot and completely packing, all during the pro finals. The pros finished around 6:30. There were so many different styles of skating that judging was tough. Duane Peter's skating best represented the day: anarchy. At one point, he rolled out of the over-vert wall onto the two foot wide deck, knocked a beer bottle into the bowl, and invert reverted back into the bowl over the death box. He got eighth. Pool ripper Sam Hitz could have won on speed and style, but he got seventh.

Rune Glifberg, speedy f-side ollie to tailgrab.

Rune Glifberg was throwing down big, fast tricks on the over-vert wall: sixth. Salba had the most lines and skated most consistently, but only got fifth. Omar Hassan was killing it, and even skated off the roof into the pool--but maybe did not use as many lines-and got fourth. Ricky Stiles dominated things, as he used every line in the pool. He even did a boneless rodeo flip, but only got third. Jake Piasseci blasted airs five to six feet out, and killed the lip to take second place. Part time MC and competitor Dave Reul combined air, killing the lip and consistency to take the overall win. See you next year, maybe.

All this wouldn't have happened without help from the following companies: Hurley, Flip, Her Vaughnster Snowboards, One West, Black Label, Vans, Element, DC, and Grind King. All companies should support the local scene!

Related Photos:
2002 Basic Bowl BBQ