Union Square Street Sessions Rail Jam Recap
Feb 16 2007 / New York City, New York Snowboarding in… New York City?Remember the Pace Picante Sauce ads where the macho cowboy dudes make fun of the salsa from New York City? There was a lot of the reverse going on in the press pit at the Union Square Street Sessions, as the old guard of old school New York press photographers who’d somehow hitched their wagons to a snowboarding event in the middle of Manhattan struggled to make sense of it all.
There weren’t enough press passes. There didn’t seem to be any rules to the contest, or order, or even competition in the sense that a couple of gruff old guys who’ve seen just about everything could relate to. The riders didn’t take turns, or take predictable routes, or do much of anything that a photographer crowded into the designated area could get a decent angle on. It was total anarchy. In other words, it was an urban snowboarding contest done completely and absolutely right, a perfect introduction to the sport for any city kid getting his first taste.
|
||||||||||
It should also be said, on behalf of New Yorkers everywhere, that a giant jib jam and surrounding circus plunked in the middle of Union Square in downtown Manhattan didn’t even seem particularly out of the ordinary, this being, you know, New York and all. Maybe it’s true that a salsa from the place is not to be trusted, but snowboarding has, quite improbably, arrived.
“I came from the city, in Denver, and I always thought snowboarding should be more accessible,” said Marc Frank Montoya, surveying the scene during warm-ups. “It’s messed up that so many city kids never get a chance to get up to the mountains to experience it, because snowboarding is so much different than the city grind. This is sick for this to come into the city and help everybody see what’s up.”
While snowboarding has become increasingly mainstream, with exposure at the Olympics and other big contests, it has also gone in the underground direction. Montoya laughed at joining skateboarders in the quest to duck cops and security guards in late-night urban rail missions.
“We were riding in Denver a little bit ago, down deep in the hood. There’s more snow in the city this year than there is in the mountains! The cops were tripping on us: These gang unit cops who got called out saw what we were doing and they were like, ‘Man, you guys are crazy.' But they didn’t give a shit: We didn’t have guns holding up a store, we were just hitting the rail by the store, and they could respect that.”
After practicing all afternoon on the rails, 24 riders started things off with an hour-long jam session. Riders chose from five different obstacles to hit on their way down: Three different rails down a steep 16-stair set, a bank-flat-bank fun box, and a high rail perched atop a red Jeep provided by the marquee event sponsor. The setup for the contest was designed by the Jib Jam crew at Mountain Creek, New Jersey, and the riders seemed to be united on one important front: The setup was gnarly in ways both good, bad, and incredibly painful.
Under better seasonal circumstances, Mountain Creek would have been hosting this weekend’s Grand Prix Snowboarding event. Standing in the wind with temperatures in the single digits, it was hard to remember that a month ago, back when they had to make the call, it was nearly 80 degrees on the East Coast.
After the first hour, the action got much more frenzied with the field of competitors cut in half and the top five already starting to sort themselves out. Eddie Wall was showing off his skateboarding chops on the rails, importing tricks and snaking his way to more than twice as many hits as some of his competitors. Lucas Magoon became an early crowd favorite, as did Yale Cousino and Jeremy Cloutie, the youngest guy in the contest. Danny Kass, Jed Anderson, Louie Vito, Chris Rotax, Tom Weiss, Charles Reid, and Scotty Anderson were also among the top riders.
With another cut 30 minutes later it was down six hustlers. It came down to both quality and quantity, and the guys who were literally running back for more happened to be the same guys who were nailing everything: Pat Moore, Brandon Reis, Jeremy Cloutie, Eddie Wall, Lucas Magoon, Louie Vito, Yale Cousino. What happened to Danny Kass and Marc Frank Montoya, you might ask? The next generation has arrived, much to the dismay of a couple of those big-time media guys in the press pit who had only been given two names to watch out for.
Down to six riders, the pace of the contest got ridiculous. Riders would drop their hammers and bangers on the rails, unclip, and sprint back up to be next in line. Coming in to this final stretch it looked like Lucas Magoon was about to add to his recent winning streak, but Eddie Wall must have been spending some time on the Stairmaster: By the end, Wall was practically running laps around the other guys, and nailing the most impressive tricks to boot.
On the awards stand, Charles Reid brought home $500 for 6th place plus an MVP Hardest Charger award for performance over the course of the entire contest. French Canadian rider Jeremy Cloutie claimed $750 for 5th, and Pat Moore took $1,200 for 4th. In the top three it was Yale Cousino at $3,000, Lucas Magoon at $7,000, and Eddie Wall in the big money at $15,000.
For an interview with Union Square Street Sessions champ Eddie Wall from the thick of things, click here >
– Colin Bane
