Gathering III

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Sat May 03, 2003 12:32 am

Pre-Gethering. Friday, May 02, 2003.

Friday afternoon, Seneca Creek Park, MD. I took a long lunch break to check out the place.

Terence, Tway, Mark McCree, Keith, Bobby Mandorino, Joe and Nick, three ladies form CT, Mitch, Michael Dong, Gareth Roe, Paul Dunn, Andy Bittner (sorry if I don’t know, can’t recall your name/spelling). Gilmour called from NJ Turnpike, so he was somewhat close.

Despite Andy’s warning many people rode one of his pre-set courses. 4.5 ft. – 6 ft. cones with offsets and turns. Tighter then “TS”. That is one “tight S” TS! Radical trucks will rule that course. Or so I think. I’ll try to catch up on my PeeVees if I can ride at all (my pumping foot is badly burned).

Paul Dunn looks extremely good on such tight course. So does Keith. And Bobby. Terence put his GS board trough gates at high speed no problem. Gareth beat everyone- he made it on Roe Bonita (or some other long board)! Tway is riding his Skolberg/Soderhall S-camber. Sweet ride for that course.

Very friendly atmosphere. A lot of equipment checking out (esp. Pocket Pistols), conversations, setting up, chatting, joking, story telling.

I’m still at work, I’ll upload some pictures when I get home.

Vlad.

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Sat May 03, 2003 9:09 am

Pictures and stories will come later as it's getting kinda busy here.
Sorry.

Rick Stanziale · Post by **Rick Stanziale** » Mon May 05, 2003 12:47 pm

<a href="http://www.chasestreet.com/rcr/gathering.htm">Photos from The 3rd Gathering</a>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rick Stanziale on 2003-05-06 11:22 ]</font>

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Mon May 05, 2003 9:17 pm

Epic weekend. Probably beats Paris-1995 by number of race events per day.
Much fun. Many new friends. Many new competitors.
Thanks:
Andy and all other significant organizers who made the races run smooth.
Peter, Gareth and Plankk-R for providing superior slalom technology.
Good racers for making it the fun it was.
AdamN for the Cup & lunch, but most importantly, for slalom support.
West Coast (esp. Dunn), Central Coast, South Coast, North Coast and “foreigners” from Canada and Venezuela for coming out and making it somewhat an international event.
Roe, Abec11, BozzE! for coming where the race is.

Mollica’s fun. Dong’s a sweetheart. TK’s kind. Tway’s sweet. Florida’s a big surprise. McCree’s a good man and a good trucks. Gilmour is still the man to beat on high-speed tech courses. (Did I get him on the fashion front? Since he gave me a C+ for the Euro Trash outfit, I think I did…)

Add the Farm’s fast and technical TS and GS to what we had at the Gathering and we’ll have a perfect slalom mix.

Stories later. But this- I gotta say this now. McKree beat me on the “racers” course! I got over many losses this weekend. I still can’t get over that one. We actually raced on the course made for racers by the racers! There were at least a couple of courses to suit the advanced riders and a couple of courses for beginners. This is the greatest thing about this weekend.

I shot over a hundred pictures. Could have been ten times more, but I had to race too.

<a href="http://public.fotki.com/VladPopov/slalo ... ">Enjoy</a>!

Vlad.

Glenn S · Post by **Glenn S** » Tue May 06, 2003 4:29 am

What were you guys calling these two courses? The red one looks to be pretty close spacing:
<img src=http://www.hugh308.com/g3_day2_set3/images/DSC06343.jpg>

What were the best times on the rad one?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: glenn on 2003-05-05 22:31 ]</font>

Vlad Popov · Post by **Vlad Popov** » Tue May 06, 2003 4:57 am

The red course.

Although some cones were under 5 feet, and 5 cones per second speed was quite possible, it wasn’t nearly as “tight” as the true English slalom described on the UK slalom site (in details along with its history). The red course seemed extreemelly tight, and I think that most people agree that it was a bit on the exteem side. Tight like that was never done in DC, not in competitons, not in practice. I set a 5-foot course ones at P&R last year and no one including me and BoBo could make it past first cone. We didn’t have any skills and we didn’t have the right equipment. We have both now.

The problem with TightTight is that most people still don’t have the proper equipment to run courses like that. I know somebody’s working on making true TS boards. McCrees, PVDs and Cambrias are the right tools. So there is hope. Florida guys showed us how to make TS out of GS boards.
It was a good inroduction to “tight S” TS. Thanks Andy.

White course.
This was a true beginner’s course with wide gates and mellow offsets. I can’t comment much on that course because I didn’t skate it. I think it was the crowd’s favorite. The line to skate this course was the longest . I left the last issue of Slalom! mag at home, and I quit smoking last year, so I didn’t have anything else to do between the gates. But the course served its purpose well. And Chaput outpumped Gilmour on it.

Results

Terry Kirby · Post by **Terry Kirby** » Tue May 06, 2003 5:10 am

The Best course I raced all year was Vlads duel course on Sunday. Simon would have been in heaven. The white course pictured above was run by Gareth on a longboard. The red course was tight but simple. TK

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