Oregon Trifecta at Aumsville 2004

I took a trip to Aumsville on Sunday to catch the final contest in the Oregon Trifecta. I had just set up a new board, the whole deal, and wanted to get some runs in at Burnside first. I got to Burnside and there were only a couple of people there, it was only 10:30, so I took some runs to fine tune my trucks. Indy stock bushing suck! I was not having a good time. I decided to take off and maybe get a few runs in at Aumsville before it got too hectic. No such luck, the place was already crawling with skaters. I wasn't about to get out there and charge around not feeling comfortable with my trucks, so I ended up just wandering around and chatting it up.

The contest format, in my opinion, was way to drawn out. They had preliminary runs, semi-finals, and finals. I guess if you were going to start fairly early, that would be fine, but when it starts at 3:00, it's a little long. The contest started out with the ladies division. There was some pretty impressive skating going down. Heidi Fitzgerald was ripping around the park and killing the deep. Jessica was doing her usual, charging. Burnside local, Heidi Bay, made a showing and threw down her trademark board flip tail smack. After the ladies wrapped it up, it was time for the old dogs, the grand masters. All of these guys were 36 and over and it showed in their style. Pat Ngoho, OG Dogtown, was ripping, as well as the rest of the crew. Like Cooksie who was launching out of the deep to big lien to tails. To wrap it up, the pro's division got under way. There were so many entrants that there were 4 heats during the prelims. It seemed each heat got better and better. Huge airs, long grinds, longer runs, and lots of speed. Just what you would expect from the top dogs.

By the time the prelims were over it was already after 7:00 and I was done. I didn't hang around for the semi-finals or the finals. I had seen what I wanted and had a good time too.

One last thing. During the contest I was kicking it with red truck Shaun in a great spot to watch the action. He was drinking something and all of a sudden, spit it all over. A bee had crawled into his drink and stung him twice on his lip. After about 10 minutes his lip swelled to elephant man proportions. It was funny as hell. He iced it with a cold one and the swelling eventually went down. I wish my camera didn't run out of batteries so quick, it would have been a classic shot.

Here are the final results of the Aumsville contest for anyone who cares.

Ladies
Heidi Fitzgerald - 1st Trifecta - 1st Overall
Jessica Starkweather - 2nd
Kim Peterson - 3rd
Melissa Dafano - 4th
Liz Brandonburg - 5th

Grand Masters
Pat Ngoho - 1st
Mike Sanders - 2nd Trifecta - 1st Overall
Pat Black - 3rd
Scott Lambert - 4th
Chris "Cooksie" Cook - 5th
John Fudula - 6th
Steve Grover - 7th
Mike Rodgers - 8th

Pro's
Benji Galloway - 1st Trifecta 1st Overall
Omar Hassan - 2nd
Jimmy the Greek - 3rd Trifecta - 2nd Overall
Ryan Johnson - 4th
Shaggy - 5th
Mark "Red" Scott - 6th
Jeff Taylor - 7th
Justin Henry - 8th
Aaron Astorga - 9th Tie
Will - 9th Tie

That's it. Go skate!