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PROGRESSIVE SKATEPARK
QUALIFIER -
CONTEST REPORT
PROGRESSIVE SKATEPARK
QUALIFIER -
CONTEST REPORT
BY: MARK MULLER
2009 King of the Groms
Progressive Qualifier
Contest Report
It all started off on New Years Eve – Mrod, Trog, Flowbie and myself (Mark) flew out of a bitter cold Minneapolis and landed in Atlanta about 5 hours before we midnight. We found the rental car place and headed to Canton. Checked into the Best Western and then walked over to Applebees to get some food and celebrate the New Year coming in. Mike Deluca the owner of Progressive Skatepark and his wife (Jamie) met us there. After a mediocre dinner and around 11:15 we all decided that we were all too tired to wait until midnight so we just decided to leave and get a goodnight sleep! – So much for a New Years celebration! – Oh well – there was much to get done tomorrow!
Thursday we got up early and had another mediocre meal – this time it was breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. The good thing though was seeing our old friend Pete Kelly and after eating and a little catching with Pete – we headed over to check out the park.
Canton has a nice small town feel and the skatepark was located right off the main drag. We pulled into the parking lot and anybody could tell that the building was an old roller-skating rink. It had a little outdoor street course in the parking lot with a street course for bikers and the bowl was also out there as well.
We entered the park and were greeted by Mike D. and Joe Pellegrino. After a quick tour of the park, shop, back rooms, and everything else – we were thoroughly impressed! The street course was huge and took up about 80% of the building. It had a unique layout with a few hips, a nice tech zone, nicely put together and smooth. The mini-ramp was off to the side and it is 65 feet wide! A nice mid section with facing extensions and a smaller, tighter section was about 20 wide and off-set.
The outside bowl wasn’t all that great – a 6-foot tall square with an extension on one side. Unfortunately or fortunately – depending on how you look at it – the bowl contest never happened because it rained all weekend long! So we decided that anybody that entered the bowl comp would get a refund and automatically qualify for the championship! Massive cheering was heard when we made this announcement!!
By the end of the day on Thursday we had gotten most of our prep work done – hanging banners, stickering the course, and getting the judges zone pimped out. Mike then invited us to go over to his home for a late dinner. Mike grew up in Canton and has many funny stories about his life growing up as a skateboarder in this town. He even has an old school vert ramp in his backyard!
Friday morning we got up early and headed back to the park to finish setup and open up the registration/check-in table. To our surprise many more registered on site and we ended with 89 total riders! This was officially our biggest qualifier of this year’s series! Friday night was mini-ramp qualifiers and all went well – we even got done a little ahead of schedule!
Mini-Ramp standouts were the ShaneWreck in the beginners division, and Jamie Foy in the expert division with his sick FS Flips!
Saturday morning got up super early, ate a little continental breakfast at the hotel (contemplated trying some ‘Grits’, didn’t) then head back to the park. We got things rolling right on time with the street course qualifiers. The beginner division is always fun to watch – these groms don’t do a lot of tricks but they navigate the course as best as they can and there is always some fun lines and creativeness to checkout.
Intermediate was the biggest division for street and standouts were Zion Wright, for his fluid runs with airs over the Snow Plow hip. We took a little intermission and Trog organized a mongo pushing race across the course. We started Expert Street and the crowd was thick. Jamie Foy had another great run and he ended qualifying first in street as well!
The rain and humidity made the bowl unskateble so Kris Markovich came up with the idea to have a mini-ramp best trick jam instead! The groms were hyped; but the parents were like what??? It was Texas-Death-Match style – but by division. So the beginners got 10 minutes by themselves, then intermediate and finally expert. The ShaneWreck won the beginner best trick with a bunch of crazy stuff – but the one I remember was – he went up Fakie, turned backside and grinded his back truck, then he kind of overlapped it and went into a BoardSlide and came back in regular and it was crazy, I’ve never seen that trick and even now I can still barely comprehend it!!
Lyon the ‘Flyin Hawaiian’ won intermediate with a mega Frontside Air over somebody’s board off the extension and little CJ Kelly won the expert best trick jam with a FrontSide No-Comply to LipSlide which just barely beat out Steven Pineiro’s Blunt KickFlip Fakie.
Saturday late afternoon we headed back to the hotel to update the website with pics and video and then got ready from the Video Premiere.
Saturday night we showed a few videos the King of the Groms DVD from last year and also the Osiris’ video – ‘Children of the Revolution’ which had a few grom vets in it! Immediately following the videos we got ready for the Milk Chugging contest, which seems to be coming a King of the Groms tradition. But before that got started the groms hog piled Trog, wrestled him to the ground, and then gave him an Atomic Wedgie!! HAHA – must have been payback for something he said on the mike that day?!?
The milk-chugging contest was absolutely hilarious and Zion Wright’s olden brother actually ended up winning – his rewards were a goody bag and a World Industry Grom Deck and yes of course a garbage can to projectile vomit in!!
It was time for bed after that – but unfortunately for Trog and Flowbie - the groms found out what room they were in and lets just say that paid dearly for that!!
Sunday morning came quick and it was back to the park for finals day! We started in the mini-ramp and ended the day in the street course. Much ripping was done by all the finalists and late entry - Bong Gause came out on top in the expert division. This makes him the King of the Groms of the first annual Progressive Skatepark Qualifier!! Bong just edged out Joseph Millazo for the win!!
The hospitality here in Georgia was second to none and we really want to thank the Deluca’s and Pellegrino’s for all the help and support with this event! Their kindness made the event run so smooth and I cannot put into words how great of a host they all were!!
We really hope that all the families and their groms can make out to the Championship in February here at the 3rd Lair! Thanks again to everybody that was involved with the event!!
Sincerely – Mark Muller
