Thursday, December 20

Palmer Goes For Gold

By Jaymo
EXPN.com

I think it may have been '99 or maybe '98? Shaun Palmer and I were in Laax, Switzerland for some Palmer Snowboards team meetings. I was there to build a TV show about his new boardercross team. It was early season November, so we had the place to ourselves. Since we had it to ourselves, we could go off. No rules, just a group of Euro boardercrossers and Palmer and I.

The week went by with lots of follow cams through one of the craziest boardercross training tracks ever. Lots of giant booters with "Dukes of Hazzard" antics a plenty. From that training week on, Palmer and his group of Euro gnarlies went on to dominate boardercross for three solid years. Everyone knows that Palmer has a rock solid competitive mind, but it really came clear to me at the end of that week.

Palmer Snowboards International rented Shaun and I a hilarious little Fiat "Bambino" I am not really sure if it was a "Bambino", but "Bambino" is the Italian word for little kid, so it fits well with my story. If Fiat didn't actually name the car "Bambino" they probably should have. It was late and we had a plane to catch the next morning so we opted to chill that evening and spend a night in the city. We loaded our gear into that hilarious little Fiat and took off. This was the kind of car you expected to see a dozen clowns roll out of at a circus, which was not to far off because Shaun was sporting his infamous clown haircut!

So here we are in a front wheel drive three-cylinder joke-mobile ripping through the Alp Autobahn. Shaun is at the wheel with Porsches and Audi Quattros making passing attempts as our car struggled up any and all hills. Shaun turned our three hour road trip into the Paris-Dakar road rally. He was blocking passes, making passes, and challenging every Euro wannabe GT racer with his underpowered Fiat Bambino. It was, to say the least, a "near death experience". Eventually, after several controlled escapes from highspeed disaster, we made it to the city.

What does this story have to do with anything? Palmer is one of the few people on this earth, that can take whatever equipment he has or whatever situation he's in, put his mind on being No. 1, and make it happen. He has done it at Pikes Peak, the Camel Supercross, the Snowboard World Championships, and the World Cup Mountain Bike Circuit. He's going for No. 1 again at the Olympic Halfpipe Qualifiers. Look out.

Rumors have been flying all over and there have been plenty of skeptics: "Palmer has been at the Mammoth superpipe training for the Olympics." I heard the US Snowboard team guys say there is no chance he will be able to learn the new tricks. I've heard young rippers write him off as a "boardercrosser" and not a pipe rider. If you ask somebody like Andy Finch however, who happens to be sponsored by Palmer and is an Olympic hopeful, and he'll tell you straight up,

"MAN, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE PALM, IF HE PUTS HIS MIND TO IT, IT'LL PROBABLY HAPPEN"

Palmer at WinterX 2000

That is the truth! Palm not only wants to be No. 1, he has the mind set to do it! Without a doubt there are tons of halfpipe rippers out there going for the gold. They probably have more tricks that Palmer does. In fact, technically, they are probably better pipe riders than Shaun is or ever will be. There is one thing that Shaun has that few will ever experience though; the ability to lay out a championship performance at a moments notice. Palmer has the mind frame it takes to be a competitive champion when the heat is on. He has proven it over and over, and he will certainly prove it again.

Shaun described his fire so well once, "I bring more pressure on myself than I think most people do, so its hard on me just because of my personality, of wanting to be the best at whatever I do."

Sonny Mayugba from Heckler magazine summed up Palmer better than anyone else, when he said, "Palmer, Palm Daddy, Mini Shred, Cadillac Kid, Pizalm, He has been called many names, not all of them nice, but the one thing that he will always be called is a champion."

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about Palm going for gold in the pipe. He will be one of the few people out there that has really stood in front of the masses and claimed the crown! It would not surprise me if he did it again at the Olympics. He is and always will be, in my book, one of the finest examples of what a real snowboarder is. He is a self-made champion.

So in one of the classic Palmer statements of all time, I leave you.......

"THE NEW SCHOOL/OLD SCHOOL IS JUST A BUNCH OF BULLSH$T. F#CK, HALF THE TIME I NEVER EVEN WENT TO SCHOOL. I MIGHT AS WELL BE A BUS DRIVER. I'LL DRIVE YOU ALL TO SCHOOL, MOTHERF***ERS."- Shaun Palmer