[FCR 2003] 2003 Worlds

[Jack Smith]

<B>Update</B>

Just got back from a meeting with the Morro Bay Police Chief and the Recreation Department Director.

My first choice of venue for Saturday's race was denied due to the fact that it is a major emergency vehicle route.

However, they approved my second choice, Pacific Street, it is only a couple of blocks away from the Main Street location. If you were standing at the end of the course on Main and walked a block south you would be at the bottom of the Pacific Avenue venue.

<a href="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?co ... Map">Click here for a map of the Pacific Street venue.</a> The starting ramps will be at Piney Way.

The course runs toward the ocean, so when you are in the starting gates you will be looking out over the Pacific Ocean. We have four blocks, the middle block is quote long. The last block will be the slow down area, some foot braking will be required.

The hill starts off with a nice little pitch then levels off into a slight grade the rest of the way. I'll post some pics soon. I coasted the hill in my car today and reached 30mph before I reached the finish line.

The surface is not great, however it's not bad. The street was slurred sealed about a year ago. Soft wheels will definitely help with traction.

Due to the fact that the street is not real steep, I have decided to call this event "Slalom" instead of "Giant Slalom".

The street is bordered by a residential area on one side and a business/residential area on the other. I would like to ask everyone to please be careful and respectful of peoples lawns and landscaping. There will also be times when we will need to let residents access their homes by vehicle. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

<a href="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?co ... Map">Click here for the Paso Robles SlalomCross location map.</a> You will need to zoom in a bit on the map. Buenavista is ine mile east of Highway 101 on Hwy 46. You will turn left on Buenavista.

Just past the Cuesta College Paso Campus you will see a sign for the Paso Robles Hot Springs and Spa on your left. Park only in designated areas or your car will be towed.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jack Smith on 2003-09-05 16:50 ]</font>

[Jack Smith]

<B>Video Premieres at the Worlds</B>

Saturday night at 7:00pm Kenny Mollica's highly anticipated epic, "Breckenridge 2003 - High Peaks Drifter II" will have it's worldwide premiere.

Also featured will be a 10-15 minute short film documenting, "Skateboarding Across America - On Board For Lowe Syndrome".

The venue will be the Morro Bay Brewing Company located at 280 Harbor, just off Main Street in Morro Bay.

Dress Code: Casual Elegance, Black Leather or whatever you happened to pack.

[Jack Smith]

Here is a photo of the Pacific Street site (looking down from start line) that we will be using on Saturday for the <B>Slalom</B>.

Please note it will be <B>Slalom</B> not Giant Slalom.

<img src= "http://www.SlalomSkateboarder.com/event ... acDown.jpg">

[Jack Smith]

Pacific Street site (looking up from finish line) that we will be using on Saturday for the <B>Slalom</B>.

Please note it will be <B>Slalom</B> not Giant Slalom.

<img src= "http://www.SlalomSkateboarder.com/event ... /PacUp.jpg">

[Jack Smith]

Pacific Street site surface that we will be using on Saturday for the <B>Slalom</B>.

Please note it will be <B>Slalom</B> not Giant Slalom.

<img src= "http://www.SlalomSkateboarder.com/event ... urface.jpg">

[Jack Smith]

<B>World Championships

There will be no race day entries</B>.

Payment of entry fees are lagging.

If you don't pay, you can't play. We must receive your entry fee by September 22. Please do not show up at the event thinking you can pay at that time. <B>There will be no race day entries</B>.

We have about eight people who have paid so far.

There seems to be some confusion on the amount of the fees.
All classes except kids, (15 and under) is $150.00.
Kids, (15 and under) is $20.00.
If a kid racer wants to also race in the open class the fee is $150.00.

<B>There will be no race day entries</B>.

You may pay your entry fee via Paypal:
trilateralpartners@hotmail.com

Or by check or money order to:
Trialateral Partners
13 E. PIER, KAPPAS MARINA
SAUSALITO, CA 94965

<B>There will be no race day entries</B>.

[Jack Smith]

FCR would like to welcome <B>Radikal Trucks, OP and Croakies/Daggers</B> as Official Sponsors of the 2003 World Slalom Championships.

[Jack Smith]

<img src= "http://www.SlalomSkateboarder.com/event ... Poster.jpg">

<a href="http://www.ncdsa.com/contest_registrati ... 100">Click here for more info on the Worlds - contest registration at NCDSA</a>

[Hans Koraeus]

I don't know what topic would be the best for stories from Morro Bay. This topic seemed to be the one where to put it.

P R E - R A C E
Luca Giammarco (ITA), Claude Reigner (CAN) and myself (SWE) had agreed to meet up on Tuesday in LA. Claude and Luca came in at 12:00 and 14:00 a great while before me at 21:30. Ed Economy had been very kind to offer himself to pick up Luca and Claude and take care of them before I arrived. It very soon showed that the news had spread quickly. Richie Carrasco soon called and invited them to come to a SSS training session. I don't know all who was there but at least Barrett “Chicken” Deck, Richie Carrasco, David Carrasco, René Carrasco and Eric “A r a b” Groff.


Luca, Ed, Richy Carrasco, Eric Groff, Economy, David Carrasco, Barret "Chicken" Deck, Giammarco, René Carrasco, Claude Reigner

Eric had set the course, a very difficult one. The course was 6 ft at the top it had a couple 7 ft offsets then it bled into a 5ft section that led into a curve that was in the 6-7 range. According to Eric himself it was the most stupid course he could imagine in preparation for what they might encounter in Morro Bay. Everybody took lots off cones. Chicken was among the ones who did best. Luca came and without protection gear or any warm-up he went for it. He ran it extremely fast but had trouble at the bottom on the curve and of course took some cones in the end too. Arab had set the course without knowing that Luca would arrive but I guess the SSS guys was eager to see what he was capable off and they where impressed. Who wouldn't be. Especially if it's the first time you see him. Surprisingly, the day after when arriving at the Gordon's ranch, rumours had already showed up on Internet at another slalom forum that Luca wasn't that good and had taken a lot of cones. Claude and Luca where all laughing when reading it well aware that no one was fast or clean in the course. Luca didn’t take it against him well aware that it must have been someone that wasn’t there and who had distorted the original rumours. The way rumours tend to do when going from mouth to mouth.

We left Luca with the Gordon's, where he would stay during the competition, and continued our journey to Morro Bay. Claude had found a motor home just 20 meter from the start of the Saturdays Hybrid slalom where we should stay. When arriving at Morro Bay we saw Paul Dunn, Jack Smith and others setting the course at Pacific Street. We where amazed over the course length. 88 cones! Finally at the end they suddenly settled for 80. I quickly said "Why not 60?" but they had apparently decided to go for a marathon race. Was it a strategy to make it more difficult for anyone to take home all three titles? Was it a strategy to tackle the threat of Luca? Who knows? It would have been interesting to here the background from Paul Dunn, the course setter.

Later we also met Kenny Mollica who was running around half naked on Pacific Street to check out the course. He looked very confident and wanted to bet $20 dollars that he would win. I understood he was in good shape and the next days would show I was right. Right in not taking the bet and that he would prove that his slalom skating was better than ever before.

Thursday came and my shoulder who had troubled me since a Stockholm bail 2 weeks earlier seemed to get better. My hopes of entering the competition increased. I started to skate a little bit in town during the day and felt more and more convinced that it would work. This until I was to foot slide to stop myself at the end of a hill/street. I was surprised of a layer of sand that made my shoe very slippery. To keep balance my reflex through my right arm up and out to the side and... AHHH! That was that! My shoulder couldn't take it. There my last hopes were gone. No racing for me. Thursday evening we went to do some skating with the Gordon's (Dylan and Lauren), Michael Stride (ENG), Claude, Luca and me. I still wanted to try the course but after two cones I pulled out. I tried to turn it into something good. This way I would be able to film much more of the competition days. All new wheels from Howard that he tested troubled Luca. His old ideas that hard wheels always were faster were showed wrong. He now didn't know what to think anymore.

We all went to bed early Thursday night. We all knew that it would be 3 tough days coming. And we where right.

[Hans Koraeus]

The "Pre race" text above edited after some inside information from Eric Groff.

[Hans Koraeus]

F R I DAY – S L A L O M - C R O S S
Friday had come and once again a grey chilly morning. This is how the days are in California, foggy and cold in the morning. And then around one a’ clock suddenly blue skies appear and you have a really hot summers day. I even felt a couple of raindrops Friday morning. But the summers day came later on as always and it took me be surprise. I started to feel the sun burning my face and ears. Well, nothing else to do than to put the shirt over your head for protection. I guess I looked like a desert nomad or something.

For Luca this was to be something new. He is a tight specialist but he also likes wide giant slalom courses. Actually he had won the Super GS in the European championships the week before. But this was something else. The qualification was done one by one in a normal manor but the head to head runs started with each skater in his own course. Then after like 40 meter the two courses became one. The last third then separated the two racers into two different tracks again. You immediately started to think of what would happen when the two racers came out of their courses to start riding the single one. This later on showed not to be such a big problem. It was very often that one of the skaters where ahead of the other. And when it was close often one of the skaters pulled back. But yes, there where a couple of cases where no one wanted to pull back. But no serious accidents appeared, at least not in this section. There was a scary turn in the joined section in the middle of the whole course. But people probably took it very easy here and no bails arrived. There where a couple of close ones though. Oh, I forgot Steve Olson. During practice with his futuristic skate a la Star Trek he came in a little bit too fast into the turn and decided to run off his board. This wasn’t as easy as you might think since he had built up his front of the skate to protect against wind drag. Once he managed to get his foot off and started to run in a speed a little bit too high for what his legs could handle he saw the inevitable. The outside boarder of the turn was a steep hill down. Luckily it wasn’t stones but it wasn’t a soft grass lawn either. You could just see him flying over the edge and you held your breath. Some people where running down the slope. Was he ok or was he dead? Finally Steve came stumbling up the hill. His ribs had taken a good hit. This was something that would trouble him a little bit the days to come. But he is not the type of guy that stops easily. He was soon on his board again but another board after that. No more Star Trek for Mr Olson. While talking about Olson I might just add that one of the big things with my trip was to be able to see Olson and Duane Peters up close. These guys are really cult skaters and to see them doing slalom is great. Slalom is sometimes seen amongst other skaters as being a little gay. In this sense Steve and DP is doing the slalom community a big favour of washing that away. Lot’s of people are skating to be cool. Others are cool by fact and don’t have to worry about such things. They do whatever they like and what they do becomes cool. That’s Steve and DP in a nutshell.

The part of the course where we saw most bails where when the single course was separated into two again. People came into the separated courses where cones where much tighter with a lot of speed. And if you started to pump too hard in that high speed it was easy to loose control of the board. That happened several times and here Olson took his second bail of the day when he was in the lead and with too much adrenalin overdid the pumping. The most spectacular bail of the day in this section was in the Open elimination with Ricky Byrd against Claude Reigner early on in the 32 bracket. Ricky fell and his skate somehow was torpedoed into the other course and took out Claude’s skate and himself by jamming the back wheels.

Luca had tried out different wheels and found what felt safe and fast. He was doing well during practice. He had no hopes of doing well and no one else either after seeing his “board from the 70’s”. It’s just crazy how he manages but as long as you do well, why change. That’s what Luca thinks but I’m sure we will see him on another board soon. I guess all slalom deck producers are dreaming of getting him on one of their boards. After the qualification he was very surprised he managed to get 2:nd place. What he didn’t know was that the qualification was extremely important this day. In the elimination the one with the better qualification run could choose course. And one of the courses was much quicker than the other. So the only thing the lower qual guy could hope for was that the other guy DQ’d or did any other grave mistake. This only happened once when Terence Kirby somehow managed to beat Charlie Ransom in the round of 8. That finally switched their places 4 and 5. Otherwise the Qual and final result looked just about the same. But there was a lot of fun and excitement anyway and in the Pro final between Luca and Tay Hunt Luca just had to get before Tay into the single course and hope he didn’t catch up in his faster lane in the end. Luca managed just this. He was first in the single lane with Tay right behind him. During the “downhill” section one could see that Tay was faster. He closed in but it was almost impossible to pass a skater on this section so he just had to keep his place behind Luca. The question was now if Luca would be able to keep his advantage in the slow course of the final section. With Luca I had a small hope that maybe he could pull it off but already halfway through the last section Tay had got hold of him and was just behind. It looked like it was over and they disappeared around the corner and everybody awaited the final result. Tay Hunt was the new World Champion in Slalom Cross 2003. Congratulations! For many, this was the first time people saw Luca and they where amazed of what he had done on his little wooden board. If he did this good in this discipline, what wouldn’t he be able to do on the coming disciplines?

Eric Groff was very happy to see me, a Swede, over there. He introduced me to his young son Nathan who is already doing really well at the junior level. His style is really good and something that many from the Open and Pro class could take after. The day was over and after a very hot day everybody was heading back to Morro Bay. It was great to see the good organisation by FCR with everything from setting up the start ramps and getting people in order. Except for Duane Peters of course that is not called “Master of disaster” for nothing. One could see that the organisation with Jack Smith in the lead was not a first time thing.

I also had other plans than Morro Bay on my trip to California. I would stay in California the week after the competition. The plan was to meet with Per Welinder regarding a skateboard documentary I'm about to edit, "1985 Swedish Skateboard Summer camp Nostalgia". He was one of the founders of these camps that started in 1979 and that kept going until 1985. Many skaters, some of them with cult status today, have been there as invited trainers during the years. Starting off with Bob Skoldberg and Mike Weed from the Hobie team in 1979 and continuing with Stacy Peralta, Alan Gelfand, Per Welinder, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Jani Söderhäll, Martin Sweeny, Billy Ruff, Neil Blender, Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain during the following years until 1985 and the last camp with Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen. More info at http://www.skateboardmemories.com. Per, who actually is from the same hometown and old skate club as Jani, surprised me when he took his time to come up and have a look at the Saturday race in Morro Bay. Maybe he wanted to check out the skateboard world slalom scene. The Friday night he came with us on the cruise that Jack had organized for some social chit chatting between skaters. Unfortunately many didn’t show up. Not that it would have changed much since Claude, Per, Dan Gesmer and myself was deep into discussion of the future of skateboarding during the whole trip. Or maybe it was because of that.

[Hans Koraeus]

S A T U R D A Y – H Y B R I D
Saturday morning was coming quickly. I was really tired and I hadn’t even skated. Claude was looking over his wounds from yesterday. Something one could see he was very used to. He could probably take a job on any emergency unit. He seems to know it all. The best thing with this morning was that the start of today’s race was only 20 meters from where we stayed. You could hear the guys building up the start ramps before jumping out of bed. I was up early and filmed the qualification for the kids. It was done in the lower part of the course while people where working to finish the rest of the scenery. After that I went home for breakfast to recharge my batteries. My own and the one for my video camera. Better make sure to have power until the very end.

Today’s course was long, fast and with surface that made many skaters try out new wheels. They tended to go for softer than they had planned. Everything to get enough grip to go around the most difficult cones. People were taking a lot of cones but it was still early in the morning. Hopefully they would get their set up and tactic working during the day.

The qualification was about to start. Not only was the course long but also a strong breeze was coming from the ocean right into the face of the riders. Maybe it was something that some riders welcomed to slow them down a bit. But the interesting thing is it could mean that the wind suddenly would turn out to be a factor. One who was ready for it was Kenny. He was dressed up in his spandex suit. A real pro is ready for every situation. Just seconds before the race was about to start the competition committee had an interesting announcement about rule changes. Rules where added that no one could win with more than 1 second. So if you got a good run in and won with 2 seconds it still would have been counted as 1 second. Also a maximum of 9 cones could be hit. More was a DQ and 1 second lead for the other skater. I think personally this was an unnecessary decision that only added complexity. It was said to be done to have more exciting races. I don’t know if there was any more excitement with these rules than without them. I didn’t feel any difference. Only confusion. But most of all I think we want the fastest racer to win, simply. If he is 2 second faster why not let him be just that. Luckily I don’t think this caused any funny results. It was just unnecessary.

After qualification Luca had “only” the 5:th best time. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t know what to do. The board seemed to have worked ok yesterday. One difference that may have played in was the surface. We had theories that the more the surface is bad the more it’s important with a soft board that can take up that extra shake. But I don’t have any clue if this has anything to do with it. He didn’t dare to change board before the competition and would certainly not try it now in the middle of it. It seemed like Luca did well up until 60 cones. After that his board reached a limit. After that it didn’t want to go any faster. It was dead. Kenny Mollica was more than a second faster. It didn’t look any good for Luca. The long course was heavy on everybody. But the most exhausted of them all must have been John Gilmour. I don’t know if it was only because he was out of shape, as he said himself, or if it had anything to do with his sensibility to not having his proteins. At the end of his racing he could hardly make it up to the start ramps before it was his turn to go again. Barret “Chicken” Deck was second after qualification. It doesn’t look very fast when he runs but the times tell another story. He doesn’t move more than necessary to get passed those cones. This would have been a very good tactic for anyone on the course. It’s hard to talk about times except for the qualification runs. In the head to head many did just what they had to do to win. And it was hard to give full throttle through the whole course even if you wanted to. People just got plain tired at the end.

Luca’s back started to give him trouble in the afternoon. Something his back seems to do now and then. “It’s normally not a problem” he said. “I just rest 3 days and it’s ok”. The problem was that this was not an option right now. He had to finish today’s race and a new one awaited him tomorrow. A funny incident during the first elimination round was when Duane Peters was going out of his course in his second run against Paul Price. He quickly turned over to the other course and started going after Paul in his course. This is of course nothing to recommend for anyone to do but seeing DP doing it was no coincident nor surprise. The finals were finished and the qualification results showed very well how it all was to go in the end. The first three places were the same with Kenny Mollica, Barret “Chicken” Deck and Richie Carrasco. Kenny looked really strong and full of energy. He was a worthy winner this day, no doubt about it. Luca was not happy at all with his 4:th place and hurried quickly back home for a hot bath for his back.

Per Welinder had come to have a look at the world slalom skateboard scene. He seemed to have had a good day seeing lot’s of familiar faces and was cheering for homeboy Barret “Chicken” Deck. He had even brought his Swedish flag for my runs but unfortunately it had to stay in the car today. So what did he think about the competition? “Well, it was hard to follow what was going on” he said. “Even when it closed in on the finals since runs where mixed a lot between the groups Pro, Open, Women, Boys and Girls”. This was of course done to let the skaters rest a little between their races. But it’s true that it’s nothing that the audience thinks about. Since we where standing towards then end of the course it was also very hard to hear what they where saying up at the start in the speaker system, a speaker system that apparently also was surprised over the long course. But to give the audience and the skater themselves a better idea of what is going on is a difficult task. Unluckily this is now said in this story of Morro Bay that in my view still was better than any of the other competitions I have been to this year. If this were done well then slalom competitions would increase a lot in value for everyone. To make it happen you need a good speaker system, good administration, well planned way of what to say and when and a good speaker. This needs to be a lot better in Europe next year and deserves more thought than it’s given for the moment. Another thing he mentioned is that it takes too long. This is true and much because audience is not our first priority on competitions so far. But maybe one could have a more compact ending of a competition day that is more interesting for an audience that will not take more than 1 or 2 hours. One could have qualifications and early elimination in the morning and at a specific time in the afternoon have the finals where the audience was more officially invited. Saying that we have a slalom competition all day long is not the best way. They will come early, get bored and leave. Better try to have them coming at 3 o’clock for 1-2 hours of intensive finals. I heard many votes for just having 16 best in the eliminations. Others proposed 8 and even 4. I think the solution is not getting fewer into the finals as much as getting a well-planned, spectacle-like ending of 1-2 hours of the day at a specific time.

Another long day was ended. Claude Regnier had got his daily bail. Everybody was tired and still there was one day to go. Puh!

[Hans Koraeus]

S U N D A Y – T I G H T
During the night Luca had had great difficulties sleeping. His back was hearting and he woke up every time he turned around in his bed. In the morning he told his girlfriend that he wouldn’t be able to enter the competition today. He wasn’t too happy about this of course. Especially since it was the tight discipline to run today, his true speciality. Once on the site he was even sadder when he saw the course. All this talk about loose Californian courses… well it didn’t fit this one. It was very tight. And it would have fitted Luca perfectly. “Typically”, he thought, “now when it’s time for my type of course I’m here with a back pain”. It started with “Let’s try it out and see how it goes”. Hmm… ok. The course was quite straight so it was quite easy. For Luca that is. I don’t think it was easy for anyone else. “So that’s that for a warm up. Better save the back as much as possible”. Next step was, “Let’s see if I at least can do the qualification runs. And then if my time is bad it’s not worth continuing anyway”. The qualification came and Luca did his first run. He had the fastest time. Whoa!

Luca was among the last racers to go. He waited at the start and saw them do their second run one after one. Many of the better riders had not been able to beat his time. He started to think that maybe he could avoid his second run. When then the rest of the faster riders had done their runs and he still was in the lead, he decided to not do his second run and save his back. He didn’t know how far it would hold but now he just had to go for the eliminations, one race at a time, and hope that he could continue until the final. At least he would be seeded as number 1 and by that have the easiest possible journey towards the final.

Early in the morning I was fishing with my camera trying to film some odd things. Sometimes you are lucky and get some funny situation or comment on tape. And this morning I got a big fish. Richie Carrasco and Eric Groff were about to set up their SSS banner on the fence alongside the course. Luca was strolling by and Arab, in good mood as he had been during the whole competition, took his chance…
- “Luca! We want you to be part of team SSS. Will you join our team?”
- “Yeah”.
- “Ok! Luca is official member of SSS. Nice! Cool! SSS rock’n!”

Back to the races. After qualification on one of my camera walks I passed Steve Olson. I asked him how he was feeling and he said he was fu#ed up after his two falls Friday. He was still one of the skaters that really surprised me here. Sure I know he’s a good skater in general but that he could take on this tight slalom course as he did, that was really nice to see. He even gave John Gilmour a little match in the first run of the round of 16. The second run he ran out of the course quite early, unfortunately, but still cruised down alongside Gilmour to the finish to congratulate him like a true gentleman. The explanation for running out of the course that early was given right after shaking hand with John when he started running uphill really fast towards the start. What was this all about? He ran towards Richie Carrasco who was standing on one of the start ramps. Once there he gave his board to Richie! Or? No. He gave Richie’s board to Richie!? Apparently he had borrowed Carrasco’s board for his second run just before Richie himself should run. A bold move indeed. And too bold it showed to be. At least for Steve. But that’s the kind of funny things that you tend to remember when competition is over and all runs mix up in a grey fog.

The Open eliminations were very tight and interesting today. Michael Stride had been smiling since early morning. This was his kind of course and he couldn’t wait to throw himself at it. He was quick and clean all day long.

During the late part of the competition Jani called me on my cell phone for some live information. After the call he went directly to write the news at the SlalomSkateboarder forum. Once he had started he couldn’t help himself to call again. It was very interesting because it locked good for both Michael Stride in the Open race and for Luca in the Pro race. It started to get very late, around 3 o’clock in the morning, over at his end but had he waited this far he almost couldn’t go to sleep without knowing the final results. On the same time we got a live update for those checking out the forum. I like that!

(Copying in some text from another topic since it really belongs to this story…)

The suspense from the tight slalom was starting to get high. Slowly photographers and cameramen took their place 10-15 meters after the finish line. David Hackett was in place in his chair with a swollen foot and video camera. A sight we had all got used to by now, after 3 days of competition. Behind and on the sides of him others had joined in with cameras to get those final runs. Steve Olson also had joined the group to cheer up his friend David a little. Those guys are really funny together and half of the joy of the finals was just standing there with my camera listening to some of their smack talk. For example when Hacket told Mollicas wife that he swore that he had seen Kenny running naked on the parking lot outside the hotel last night. She said: “No, your kidding?”. Hacket answered with a big smile on his lips: “Yeah, you’re right. He wasn’t naked. He had a beer in his hand”.

Back to the story. It was the pro semi finals going on and Mollica and Gilmour had just run over the finish line in their second run. It was very close and no one knew the outcome. I had my camera rolling and got in front of Mollica and Gilmour when they slowly walked back up the side of the course. They both waited for the final announcement while talking nervously with each other. The final judgement took time and each second felt like a minute. I was still walking backwards in front of them with the camera in my hand. Finally it came. The winner was Kenny Mollica. He had beaten John Gilmour only with a few hundreds of a second. Now suddenly I was halfway up the course and the next race was about to start. The junior final. Quickly I turned off the camera to run down to take my place among the others again. I could hear the preparation for the start of the next heat. Once down there I had just the time to think, "Yes, I made it!", before I heard Steve Olson say:
- "Corky! You passed the finish line!"
They where using these infrared beams for measuring times. I responded in chock...
- "I did? Oh, shit!"
...well aware of the complete embarrassment if I had done this while the junior final was under way. Luckily, when my eyes looked up towards the start ramps, the boys where still standing on them. Huh! Steve continued:
- "Corky, you can't pass the finish line EVEN though you are a camera man."
Relieved that my stupid mistake hadn't caused any big harm...
- "No, you're right ...pause... Did anyone get my time?"

No response. They probably didn't know if I was joking or not. Do I need to tell I was quiet as a mouse after that?

Now back to the real story. Stride went on like a locomotive and seemed to enjoy himself. And he seemed to really have that will to win. And after some exciting final runs he got the result from the speaker. He was the new Open World Champion. He was stoked. He couldn’t believe it. He said: “Hey, this is probably the first time ever that I win a contest. And it’s the Worlds. Incredible!”.

Luca also had some close runs in the semi final and final runs. I got the feeling that he just did what he had to do, to win. With his back pain he didn’t want to push it more than he needed. In the first final run Kenny Mollica was first over the finish line but leaving a bunch of cones tipped over after him. Luca was clean as a baby but. Luca had a lead of 0.33 seconds before the second run. In the second run Mollica knew that it was now or never. He was going hard at the start. Luca’s plan was just to follow right after, not letting Kenny get too far ahead of him, and go for a clean run. He heard early on two cones getting hit by Mollica and knew already there that his plan was working and he could continue the course relaxed without any stress. He came in with a clean run and a perfect ending of the competition. Luca had on the third day finally got his 1:st place. He was now also a World Champ. He was relieved and everybody was happy for him.

A funny episode happened after all the congratulations and “well done”. Apparently there was an Italian restaurant just on the side of the street. When the Italian owner heard that an Italian had won he came out and congratulated Luca. Then suddenly they disappeared into his restaurant. After 5 minutes they came out and sat down on a coffee table on the sidewalk. They had already closed but the chef had made him a real Italian cappuccino, something that he had been whining about since day one. It was unreal. Luca was sitting at the table speaking Italian with this guy. I was filming and on the phone with Jani on the same time speaking Swedish telling him about what was happening. Then the guy suddenly turned to me and said in Swedish: “Ah, are you from Sweden? I used the live in Sweden for many years you know”. We were laughing so hard saying that the world is sometimes so damn small.

[Terry Kirby]

Corky, you write the best damn slalom story anywhere. TK

[Hans Koraeus]

The "Pre race" text above edited again after some nice photo portraits from René Carrasco at the SSS warm-up. Thanks René.

And thanks for the warming words TK. It's going to be hard to live up to them though. I have still the final "After skate" text to do.

Congratulations to myself. 300 posts! Adam and Jani: How many posts do you have to do per year on SS to get the gold card?

[Hans Koraeus]

A F T E R – S K A T E
The competition was over. Three days of intense action both for the skaters and the organizers. It was impressive to see how Jack Smith and his crew worked from early morning until the evening. First building everything up. Then running the competition to finally tear everything down again. And this was done every day since the competition changed location each day. Bravo for everyone who was involved in it. You did a great job. Truly professional. And that Dan Gesmer was behind the computer screen was no surprise and something that has been seen often both in US and Europe this year. Looking at the competitions I’ve been at during 2003 this was the best organized.

Unluckily Claude and I misunderstood when the prize ceremony was going to be held. We went home and took our showers and packed our bags. When we came back for the ceremony it had just finished. Really sad for me who was filming. I had hoped to be able to talk more with all people during these competition days but it had not worked out. Now finally, I thought, I would be able to talk to the many new faces that I had seen only as a name in forums and result lists from the US. But again things just wouldn’t turn out that way. The Gordon’s had planned to invite Luca and Stride out on a last dinner. And since Luca was going with us in our car down to LA we all finished up on this dinner instead. Well, well, I just have to come back again, don’t I?

The last dinner was a real winner dinner with Luca Giammarco, Michael Stride, the Gordon’s and why not throw in 3dm too. Thank’s to the Gordon’s by the way for taking care of Luca in general with a place to sleep and making him feel at home. That goes for everyone else too. Everybody was very nice to Luca and really exited to see him coming over to the US. Finally 3dm sponsored his trip over the Ocean but it was actually all initiated in Paris when Kenny Mollica, Vlad Popov (Yes! Vlad!), John Gilmour and Bruce Brewington all convinced him that it would be so cool if he would come over to the US and race. They would even pay his ticket if he decided to go. Vlad’s positive vibes cooled down though somewhere on the route and he finally was afraid that Luca’s ability wouldn’t show on the loose Californian courses. But Luca didn’t care much. He was prepared to take the risk and as it turned out it was well worth it. In the end it was Vlad who missed out. The tight course was very tight and something Vlad would have loved to run. Lot’s of Europeans actually also missed out but then that’s more of a money issue then anything else I’m sure. I’m still dreaming of a Worlds where the very best of both US and Europe will gather up.

So a last funny little episode ending this Morro Bay Story. On my trip to the Worlds in Morro Bay I also had other plans for LA. I had made an article for Juice Magazine on the old cultic Swedish skate summer camps (1979 to 1985). The plan was to come by their office at Venice beach office and give it to the editors Terri Craft and Dan Levy. Funny was that when we drove down from the Worlds early Monday morning to get Dan Gesmer off for his visit with Laura Thornhill and get Claude Reigner and Luca Giammarco on their flights back home, Luca and I got some hours to spend alone before his flight. Instead of hanging around the airport I suggested we take a short sightseeing at Marina Del Ray just north of the LAX airport. Once there I realized after a while that it was just south of Venice Beach so we took a walk up there too. That’s when I realized again that, hey, this is where the Juice Magazine office is. So I said: “Let’s see if we can find it”. Once we had found it I thought it would be cool just to say hello. Especially with Luca on my side as the new World Champion in tight slalom. Just before we went in a woman and a man with a familiar face came out of the port. We asked very nice if this was the Juice Magazine office. They looked on us with a suspicious air but finally said that we had come to the right place. I later realized it was Jeff Ho. We where in the heart of the skate land all right. That wasn’t bad for a first talk in LA. We later met and said hello to Terri and Dan and Dan took some shots of Luca. According to Terri their plans to come to Morro Bay had to be cancelled. It wasn’t impossible that they would write something about it anyway, she said, but it depended on if they came over any good photos or not.

Well this ends my story. This is only one view and surely many others have other good stories to tell. The problem is writing them down. It’s a pain but once it’s over it feels good. Now I will only add some photos to the story and then I will call it a day.

[Jack Smith]

Corky, it was great to meet you at Morro Bay. I wish we could have spent more time together. Thanks so much for your reporting on the Worlds, I enjoyed it very much.

Hope to see you again soon.

Best Regards,
Jack

[Adam Trahan]

really really cool story. your skills at capturing the "feel" are excellent. thank you very much for taking the time to write this.

[Hans Koraeus]

Flash (version 6) 1.4 Mb

Sunday Tight Slalom

P.S. If it hangs just right click and select "Rewind" to go back to the beginning again. I still have problem uploading files. End is cut off.

[Hans Koraeus]

I just saw that I forgot to mention in my Morro Story that Claude Reigner was the main factor for making my trip to Morro Bay a success. Since I couldn't skate I was really depressed and if it hadn't been for him helping me out with driving the car, fixing somewhere to stay and talk about the good old skate days when we were young and fit, until late hours, I would probably have jumped off the Morro Rock. Thank's again for a nice trip Claude!


Claude Regnier checking out Pacific Street for the Saturday Slalom.

Damn! Still can't upload things correctly. You will have to do with Claude's head for now. - Head back in place now...

[Claude Regnier]

Hans. likewise.

My only regret is not being able to get that shoulder heeled enough to allow you to race.

I've got to hand it to you. You kept working it. That sand dod you in but for a couple of days you still tried to get ready.

As of today my elbow has totally closed up. Just one 7" scar with an offset to the left. Funny that's that direction the board came from, LOL.

Oh yeah Hans, You forgot to mention that you were so excited watching Ricky and I go that when we went into the turn and you were switching "camara position" you never started filming again and missed the crash, LOL.

It was a Great event. Best time I've had at a contest, ever!!!!!!!!!

[William Tway]

Pretty work Hans. Thanks for the effort.

[Hans Koraeus]

More to come. I have sent most of my Morro Bay footage to a well known slalom skateboard film editor in the US. I think it's a good idea to share your footage sometimes so that we can produce more and better films for our community. I mean, who else does slalom skateboard movies on our planet than ourselves. It's also fun to see what others will make of your footage.

Film time!
Now, the thing is I couldn't keep my hands off any longer so here is part one of my Merry Morro Memories (6.6 Mb). And yes, good news, it's in windows media player format.

Not much slalom in this one I'm afraid but who cares about that when you get a glance of Luca eating breakfast, Claude and Stride browsing the forums, Paul Dunn and Claude dancing in the streets, some bails, Olson and DP walking (they do it so well) and a special greeting from the Californian guvernour himself.

[Adam Trahan]

...thank you, thank you, thank you Corky.

Cool.

[Wes Eastridge]

And yes, good news, it's in windows media player format.

Yes, that's great news. I almost thought I would actually be able to watch it after downloading it. Proprietary codecs are the best thing since Java that's been reverse-engineered by Microsoft

Thanks for the race recap though.

[Rene Carrasco]

Congratulations Tay - on your full page photo/article in the Oregon newspaper - WESTERN WORLD.

Way to go bro. -
- way to HELP spread the popularity of Skateboard Slalom Racing !

..................................-Rene' Cannonball Carrasco.

[Hans Koraeus]

Once you start it's hard to stop. Here is Merry Morro Memories II (6.6 Mb). Much more skating this time. A little bit of cross and a little bit of Slalom. Schedule too tight for Tight this time.

Film highlights are...
- A new set-up from IKEA?
- Claude “wiggling” into the liquor store before skating.
- Eric Groff showing the peace sign. To Gilmour?
- Kenny Mollica riming. But does it make any sense? You tell me.
- Michael Stride gives away his slalom speed secret.
- Duane Peters showing why he is called Master of Disaster.
- Eric Groff looking good.
- Sofa run. Don't just sit in your sofa looking at slalom runs. Run slalom with your sofa.
- Circus has come to town. Mr X balancing on one foot over the finish line. (Who is it? Please help me out.)
- John Hutson cone attack.
- Per Welinder entering the slalom scene. Is it only to sheer on his hometown guys or is there more to it? I got the inside information for you. He's even giving away his board preference. Per Welinder on a slalom board? Sure! I have it on film. It gave me a hint of how far he has got so far.
- Paul Price now officially admits he's a pro. Or does he? He makes a political answer to a straight forward question.
- Extremely classified first hand inside slalom information about Pierre André and Don Brown. Only here on SlalomSkateboarder. By the way, Pierre was a very good slalomer in the good old days.
- And a couple of different skaters running cones of course. If someone has the skill and time to list them please feel free.

All this in less than 4 and a half minute. It's a bargain!

[Jani Soderhall]

Corky,

Keep those videos coming!

/Jani

[Hans Koraeus]

Too bad that everyone doesn't seem to be able to watch them though. I'm using a PC myself. Too bad MAC users have problems with Windows media files. I used Real media (rm) files before and thought wmv files would work better for both. Well, well...

Part III in the Merry Morro Memories series is in the oven. It will be out soon. This time I have played around with some film clips from Sunday's tight slalom.

[Guest]

Hans....Windows Media .WMV files ARE better than Real media .RM (which is closer to a virus than a real application)...even on a Mac. Macs can veiw your files (both fine) OS 9 &10 with no issues, all it takes is a download of the (albeit crappy) players from Real and Microsoft.

However .WMV and .RM pale in comparison to .MPGs. Even if your .MPGs are 2x larger (10mbs) I'll live, as will others....a larger file but in a good format...

BTW - great movies. You've come a long way since those first Paris movies! My wife got a kick out of Luca drinking a cappacino at Starbucks. She said..."Starbucks cappacinos can't even compare to the real ones in Italy."...Hopefully next summer I'll get to see for myself (again.).

[Adam Trahan]

...we have the storage space AND the traffic capability so let not the storage size be a factor, as a MAC user, I prefer mpg but do as you wish because I will view them one way or the other, matters not.

[Hans Koraeus]

Chris, your wife is quite right. The cappuccinos at Starbucks can't compare with the ones in Italy. At least that's what Luca kept saying all week too. But Morro Bay Main Street was holding on a nice surprise for him. I have it on film and it will show up in a coming episode of the Merry Morro Memories. A true highlight from the trip it was too.

[Leonardo Ojeda]

incredible and funny vids Corky...
nice musicalization


waitng for number 3

[Paul Keleher]

Corky,

Great vids, look forward to seeing part 3.

Paul K

[Hans Koraeus]

Here I am again with part 3 of the Merry Morro series. Merry Morro Memories III

Tight slalom this time. More skating less funny clips. But of course there are
- Dan Gesmer showing off at the grand stand
- Steve Olson getting the news from Luca that he's back is "caput"
- Richy Carrasco trying his best as a cone judge
- Steve Olson running up the course with Richy's board that he used in his race against Gilmour just before Richy himself should race
- Gilmour offering Mollica a place in the final against Luca for $2000.
- Noah Heinle and Claude Reigner running for 3:rd place in Open class
- Gilmour and Dong running for 3:rd in Pro class

That's all I could fit in on 4 and a half minute this time.

[Hans Koraeus]

I have this idea of giving you all a gift for christmas. But only for christmas. Since I can't trust you guys opening the gift only on the christmas day I will have to put it here on the actual day itself. Since in Sweden we open our presents the 24:th and in other places the 25:th, I will be nice to let it be here for 2 days. After that it will be gone. So be here or miss out.

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[Hans Koraeus]

A new part of the Merry Morro series is ready for delivery. This one is small (2.5Mb) and funny (if you have my kind of humour). But it didn't turn out as funny after the compression I'm afraid. You will just have to await the DVD with all my 2003 footage to enjoy it fully.

Until then here is Merry Morro Memories IV. Needs Windows Media Player 9.

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.
You find the fun and snap!
The job is a game."


P.S. You need to look at it several times to grasp all the stuff. A trademark for most of my films I'm afraid. I have noticed that they are often the best the 5:th time around or so. Even though I have strong suspicions that for some it may take a lifetime.

[Hans Koraeus]

<center>3.5Mb, Windows Media Player version 9 needed



Merry X-mas for you who love that nostalgic Christmas feeling...
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[Hans Koraeus]

<center>5.5Mb, Windows Media Player version 9 needed



Merry X-mas for you who don't love that nostalgic Christmas feeling...
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[Terry Kirby]

Thanks for the Christmas present Corky. Your DJ skills are strong. Love the films. When are you going to do an hour long special? TK

[Rene Carrasco]

Hans -

.......you're a Francis Ford Coppola !
...................Steven Spielberg !
..........................George Lucas !

..............................cool films you put together bro. - Seriously !

........thanx....................-Rene' CANNONBALL Carrasco !

[Sven Lippert]

what a nice gift on x-mas - thanks from berlin - part 6 is cool - its the first time i saw duane doing slalom -

cheers from minus three degrees celsius cold germany

[Hans Koraeus]

Claude, the picture on you, above, is now ok.

Sorry for keeping your head shopped off for so long. Hope to see you on a race this year… in one piece.

And thanks everyone for your positive comments about text and films from "The Worlds" trip.

[Steve Collins]

Hans,

Will your DVD be available sometime soon?

Thanks, Steve

[Hans Koraeus]

Steve,

It was my intention doing a DVD but I don't know if it's worth the trouble. For the moment I have lost the motivation. Too many other things going on for the moment. There are others though who are working hard to make it happen. Kenny Mollica will most likley have a DVD "in the shops" sometime during the spring. Carrasco's filmed a lot and I guess they too are on to something.

P.S. Or is my low motivation only a touch of winter depression? We'll see when the spring sets in.