2008 Volcom Wild In The Parks: Stop #1 - The first stop on the 2008 North American Wild in the Parks tour went down on Saturday, May 10th at Utah’s Greenwood Skatepark!
2008 Volcom Wild In The Parks: Stop #1
The first stop on the 2008 North American Wild in the Parks tour went down on Saturday, May 10th at Utah’s Greenwood Skatepark!
The skatepark is located in American Fork, which is located a half hour South of Salt Lake City. We’ve been hearing rumors surrounding the park for a while now so we decided it was high time we went and checked it out for ourselves. We weren’t disappointed! Greenwood skatepark is located just off Main Street and is what some might call a skate oasis. The designers went out of their way to pack as many features as possible into a relatively small area. From an expansive street section, to a monster bowl with more and a little vert, this is a park done right! Derric Rykert and the rest of the crew from American Fork’s Parks & Rec dept. were super supportive in helping us put the contest together. The result was the biggest Wild in the Parks we’ve had to date!
In case you’re tuning in late, the Wild in the Parks is Volcom’s free-entry amateur-only skate contest series. Featuring an obscene amount of prizing and prestige, plus a $30,000.00 cash purse at this year’s tour-concluding Championship event, there are plenty of reasons to throw down! The contest is simple; the park is broken up into three distinct “zones” that usually include multiple obstacles. A celebrity guest judge then posts up in each of these zones and scores competitors every time they land a trick. Heats of 15 competitors skate in jam format for 15 minutes trying to nail the heaviest hammer they can in each zone. Competitor’s scores from each area are then combined and bang! We have our winners. The top 7 from each division qualify for the $30,000 2008 WITP Championship event, which will go down Sat Oct 18 at Arizona’s Rio Vista Skatepark!! Want some, get some.
As has become somewhat habitual, the day began with the 14 & Under Division. The way these groms blew out of the starting gates we knew we were in for a show! Some serious tricks were nailed in all three zones in short order making everyone hungry for more, more, more! Among others, Chandler Seipert, Christian Ridgeway and Parker Garrett were on the prowl and skating like they all had chips on their shoulders. This must have been inspirational becane whole division followed suit. We saw a little kickflipping down the 8-set in zone 1, nollie nose manuals on the pad in zone 2 and back tails on the flat-down ledge in zone 3. Ain’t no thang like a chicken wang, nah’mean?
The 15 & Over Division was up next and wasted no time building on the madness the younger group had started! Before I could say “The Wild in the Parks is a barrel of monkeys”, all three contest zones had been slayed and the competitors were chewing on the carcasses…(?) Moving on. Despite ripping by nearly everyone and scores that were too close to call with the naked eye, Brandon Hobush (of PBRJ fame) took 1st, Chase Strikwerda locked down 2nd and Nate Brown was hot on their heels in 3rd! Nice work chaps.
The sun was scorching my pasty white skin as the Pro-Am division grabbed centre stage and put on a helluva show! The gallery in front of the 8-set in zone 1 was packed with spectators as the pro-am division burned the whole place to the ground! We saw switch nollie back lips, switch b/s heelflips, switch back blunts and even a switch flip back tail. Basically, just name any trick and put “switch” in front of it and it. Insanely mental stupidy!
Many thanks and praise to Derric Rykert, Berklee, the green-shirted crew and everyone else from American Fork City for everything! We really appreciate all your hard work and I know the kids do too. Thanks also to Volcom’s own TJ Bottom for his help holding things down and to our judges; Eric Hess, Dave Van and Matt Kozart! Last but not least, thanks to Blake Johnson for snapping some great photos for us!
