This years Summer Swine Stomp saw a number of our European cousins joining us for the event giving the weekends racing a truly international flavour. We welcomed Ferdinand Lindner from Germany, returning Frenchman Vincent Tanguy and Bart Brunnikhuis, Jeroen Steggink and freestyler Erwin Shuvit from Holland. The Swine Stomp would also be the debut outing for the newest signing to the Pavel Racing Team, PigCity’s very own Mmedo Duffort. He would join teammates Louis Selby, Sam Gordon and Berliner Ferdinand in their quest for the podiums over the weekend.
Once the initial greetings had been exchanged and coffees drunk we set about the task in hand. While Sam assisted Tim and Louise on the registration desk the rest of us started setting up the ramps and getting the Hybrid course marked and set. The course was set with our European guests as is the norm for our Prime Status events.
It was good to see Michael up and about after his treatment the previous day and making it along the Caterham 7 (or ‘Skaterham’ as it has become known). He had even managed to get a fair amount of the Octane Sport shop in the passenger seat which he soon set about unloading. In addition to Michael’s shop we were also joined by Jimmy’ Z trackside. It was great to meet and chat with Blake Harrington who I had missed seeing at Paddle Round the Pier a couple of weeks earlier. He hooked a fair few of us up with some cool Jimmy ‘Z threads as well which was really good of him, thank you kindly sir.
Having made their debut at The Crackling we were again joined at Hog Hill by the freestyle crew for their “UK Round Up” which had been organised by Tony Gale; it featured a few different formats as well as the usual “2 minute routine” one. Sweden’s Lillis Akesson was in town visiting and so had come along to compete and Bart was putting in appearances between slalom races and to check on how Erwin was doing.
After a last bit of tinkering with the final few cones the Hybrid course was ready to go and following a short rider briefing we began the qualifying around 2.15pm. The cut for the A group would be the top 8 fastest leaving 16 riders to make up the B group.
Qualifying was a straight 1, 2, 3, for the visitors. Ferdy was in pole position with Vincent second and Bart in third. Joining the top three in the A’s would be Louis Selby, Mmedo, Sam Gordon, Chris Charalambous and John Nicholas.
In the round of 8 Ferdy was paired with John, unfortunately a DQ in the first run meant John needed nothing short of a small miracle to make up the deficit, it didn’t materialise and so Ferdy advanced. Louis was matched against his new Pavel teammate Mmedo. From the moment they left the ramps the two were neck and neck, almost synchronised in their movements. Although Louis crossed the line in 15.620, just a fraction in front of Mmedo (15.660) his one cone penalty gave Mmedo the edge by just 0.6. If the first run was close the second was incredible, this time both riders were perfectly synchronised all the way to the line – a dead heat 15.880. But this time it was Mmedo who had incurred the penalty meaning that Louis went through by just 0.04. Vincent last met up with Chris inBrightona few weeks earlier now he was racing him at Hog Hill. The first run looked close with both riders hitting cones but Vincent took the first round. In the second Chris didn’t get as quick a start as he would have liked and ended up crossing the line 0.7 behind the fast Frenchman. The final pairing was Bart versus Sam. Whether he had his eye on doing a bit of freestyle we’ll never know? But Flying Dutchman Bart was a man on a mission running clean and just managing to edge ahead of Sam in both of his runs.
Onto the round of 4 which again produced some amazingly close races and another dead heat decided on the cone count. In Louis’ first run against Ferdy he crossed the line just 0.1 ahead of the Berliner who also incurred a cone penalty meaning he had to pull out all the stops on his second run. Sadly he may have tried too hard, two thirds of the way through the course Ferdy pulled out leaving Louis to go through to the final. In the first run of their heat Vincent and Bart crossed the line neck and neck with both clocks stopped at 15.640. However Bart had taken out 3 cones meaning an advantage to Vincent of 0.3 going into the last run. Like Ferdy before him Bart too overcooked it and DQ’d setting up Vincent to meet Louis in the final and consigning himself to the consolation round.
The first run of the final went to Louis by just 0.06 with both riders displacing one cone, in the second both ran clean but Louis had just done enough and took the top spot, the margin just 0.24. In the consolation round Ferdy ran clean and Bart didn’t, that was essentially the difference between 3rd and 4th place.
With the forecast for Sunday still looking “iffy” we decided to run straight into the B Group and aimed to get it run all the way through starting with the round of 16. The riders in the group were also keen to get racing and most were standing ready by the ramps as soon as their name was called. The level of progression was really noticeable, everyone appeared to have improved and getting faster since the last race. The initial 16 were soon cut down to 8 and the pairings for the round of 8 looked like this: Jeroen vs. Tiago Fanha, Andy Turner vs. Paul Coupe, old LSD boys Chris “Clingfilm” Linford and Jim Parry Jones would race one another and Ben Williams would face the well travelled Richard Searle.
Jeroen went through to the next round with relative ease after Tiago DQ’d his second run. Paul took the first heat against Andy but in the second, despite picking up few cone penalties, Andy was marginally quicker than the race hardened board hoarder and so he advanced to the next round. In the match up between the veteran LSD old boys both ran clean in their first runs, but Chris riding his new Pavel Roadster was marginally faster than Jim and so it was he who would be joining the others in the round of 4. In the remaining heat both riders hit cones but Ben had done enough to halt Richard’s progress for the afternoon.
The first race in the round of 4 between Jeroen and Andy was very close but Jeroen suffered a hefty cone count hitting 8 to Andy’s 3, so the advantage lay with Andy. The second run was similarly close, both riders hitting 4 cones each but it was Andy’s first run advantage that would see him through to the final. In the other match up a heavy cone count and second run DQ sent Chris into the consolation round and advanced Ben into in the final to face Andy.
In the first heat of the final Ben crossed the line in 18.550 and Andy in 18.690 both riders had hit two cones each meaning Ben took a 0.14 advantage into the final run. As they left the ramps Andy was right up with Ben but when they crossed the line a look back up the hill confirmed that he had hit one more cone than the Pig City rider which was enough see Ben crowned as B Group winner. Clingfilm retired from the consolation round and did not race meaning that Jeroen took the third place podium unchallenged.
With Hybrid results in the bag and the days racing done we headed off to Hargreaves Campsite to pitch tents before descending upon the nearby Dick Turpin pub for food and drink.
It was at the pub that Alan and Derek Featherstone got talking to Bart about skating in Holland. Alan revealed to Bart that he had some early letters and bits of information regarding the Dutch National Skate Team and their various competitions from the early 80’s. Bart was really interested in this as he didn’t think that anything existed from back then? Alan said he would dig some bits out for him and get them sent off to him. I love how these various connections and associations get made at our events – so stoked that this one got made!
Stewart Savage, old skater and Half Dead Skateboards UK Rep, put up a couple of decks for raffle at the pub. One was won by Clingfilm and the other by Vincent Tanguy. He also presented a Half Dead “Chart Attack” model to Erwin Shuvit to go with the 55mm green core White Kryptonics he had won in the Freestyle competition.
Thanks Stew – top man.
After a little overnight rain Sunday began better than expected and as the morning went on it just continued to improve. I had only been up at the track for a few minutes when I saw a chap arrive clutching an old Hobieflex Slalom with Bennett Ad-Traks and Excellerator wheels. I recognised him as the person I had spoken to a few days earlier and had told him to come along. His name was Kim, he had heard me on Radio London on Robert Elms Show and he had also dialled in to the program. We chatted for a bit before I took him over to the track where I introduced him to Ed Brockman and a few others. His vintage board received a fair bit of attention from those gathered for the GS including Mr Coupe of course! Kim said that he hadn’t ridden it through cones for years but he was soon grinning ear to ear as he flew down the hill to tackle the course – which is always good to see!
The GS got underway late into the morning once the course had been agreed, finalised and the timing tested. Riders began queuing at the ramp to take the first of their three runs down the fast challenging course. The fastest timed run would be the one that counted. As ever wind conditions could make all the difference to a run, a favourable tail wind could reduce a run by almost a second and a half, a headwind quite the opposite? Timekeeping was left in the capable hands of Louis, Mmedo and Gavin. The order changed a few times during racing but it was a very determined Ferdy that walked off with the 1st place for the fastest time despite coming a cropper earlier on during proceedings. Mmedo came hot on his heels in 2nd place and Bart and Vincent took 3rd and 4th respectively and they were followed by Sam in 5th and Louis in 6th place.
With the main slalom events over a couple of courses were being skated by those that wanted to skate on. Ed appeared to be enjoying himself skating cones on the hill again and it was really great to see. I had gone across to the café to calculate the overall places for the weekend and work out the prize allocation when I heard the call for “St Johns’ Ambulance to attend a man down on the slalom hill”. It was Dobie apparently? I immediately got up and went over to see what was going on. Sure enough it was Dobie; he had been taking another run and as he was going down the start ramp his board split, breaking a few inches behind the front truck sending him flying. In the ensuing impact he sustained a mild concussion and a bit of road rash here and there. But he was more concerned that he had chipped one of his front teeth than anything. The St Johns’ people did a great job as did our own first aid crew. After making him comfortable and checking him over at the hill he was taken off by ambulance to Romford Hospital for further checks before being released later that evening. Big thanks to Paul Coupe, Ed and Chris Charalambous for looking after the big man and getting him home safely.
As I was checking everything was alright with the Dobie situation I glanced across to where Clingfilm was standing to see a familiar figure talking to him, someone that I had not seen for about 25 years. It was none other than Graham “Mac” McEachran another of the old Southbank Boyz. For those unfamiliar with him, Mac was a top freestyler and bank rider extraordinaire and helped form Deathbox with Jeremy Fox. Some of you may remember he was the artist for the Deathbox board graphics and was responsible for some iconic images? It was great catching up with him and happy to say I wasn’t the only one that was stoked to see him again – Mac is back!
The slalom prize giving ceremony was held a little earlier than usual so that our European cousins could leave in plenty of time to catch flights and ferries etc. In addition to the prizes for the Swine Stomp we also had to give out the prizes from the Turn & Burn race held in Brighton at the beginning of the month. The schwag table looked pretty impressive; there were decks from Half Dead Skateboards, wheels from Kryptonics, wheels, bearings, slide gloves and other assorted goodies from Octane Sport, as well as stuff from Mindless Longboards and DStreet Longboards including a complete – one of two they sent for the event. There were 1st, 2nd and 3rd place Swine Stomp ceramic mugs and nice shiny trophies for the overall positions.
As well as the normal prizes there was a special award of a Half Dead “Chart Attack” deck to Andy Turner in recognition of his “Road Services” to the UKSSA this year. Once prize giving was over we bid our visiting racers a fond farewell loaded up the last of the stuff into the van and headed our separate ways. Andy and I took all the gear and the ramps back down to their stable in West Sussex after which we were finally able to head to our homes and contemplate on a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. Job well done everyone, until next time Wiggle Fans….
Big Thanks to:
Michael Stride and Octane Sport, Sam Gordon, DAS Industries – Timmy Peters and Louise Roberts, Andy Turner, Paul Coupe, Ed Brockman, Chris Charalambous, John Nicholas, Alec Brown, Gavin Palfrey, Louis Selby, Mmedo Duffort, Richard Searle, Jimmy’Z – Blake Harrington, Tony Gale and British Freestyle, Everyone at Kryptonics, Half Dead Skateboards – Lee Bryan and UK Rep Stewart Savage, Seismic Skate Systems – Race Spreadsheets, Shiner – DStreet Longboards, Mindless Longboards and all of our other lovely sponsors and supporters.St John’sAmbulance – London Region. Ian Coles and all of the wonderful staff at Redbridge Cycling Centre, Romford Hospital – for checking Dobie out, Hargreaves Scout Campsite, Mac for just turning up and putting the icing on an already great cake, Lyn and Richard Case for ramp storage and finally to you the racers – we couldn’t do it with out you!
Summer Swine Stomp 2015 Results
Hybrid Slalom
A Group
- Louis Selby
- Vincent Tanguy
- Ferdinand Lindner
- Bart Brunnikhuis
- Mmedo Duffort
- Sam Gordon
- Chris Charalambous
- John Nicholas
B Group
- Ben Williams
- Andy Turner
- Jeroen Steggink
- Chris Linford
- Paul Coupe
- Richard Searle
- Jim Parry Jones
- Tiago Fanha
- Alec Brown
- Gavin Palfrey
- Trevor Hickey
- Dill Hill
- Paul Borrell
- Daniel Ravenall
- Mike Fish
- Dominic Barette
Giant Slalom
- Ferdinand Lindner 19.82
- Mmedo Duffort 20.15
- Bart Brunnikhuis 20.37
- Vincent Tanguy 20.24
- Sam Gordon 21.09
- Louis Selby 21.11
- Ben Williams 21.96
- Jeroen Steggink 21.96
- John Nicholas 22.45
- Alex Ireton 22.60
- Chris Charalambous 22.72
- Richard Searle 22.76
- Paul Coupe 22.93
- Paul Borrell 22.94
- Andy Turner 23.30
- Trevor Hickey 23.56
- Daniel Ravenall 23.99
- Gavin Palfrey 24.11
- Dill Hill 24.47
- Alec Brown 24.58
Overall Standings
- Ferdinand Lindner
- Louis Selby
- Vincent Tanguy
- Mmedo Duffort
- Bart Brunnikhuis
- Sam Gordon
- Chris Charalambous/ Ben Williams
- John Nicholas
- Jeroen Steggink
- Andy Turner
- Paul Coupe/Richard Searle
- Paul Borrell
- Trevor Hickey
- Gavin Palfrey
- Alec Brown
- Dill Hill/Daniel Ravenall
- Chris Linford (Hybrid only)
- Jim Parry Jones (Hybrid only)
- Tiago Fanha (Hybrid only)
- Mike Fish (Hybrid only)
- Dominic Barette (Hybrid only)