2016 Razorback Games, Hog Hill, 16th- 17th July

With it being an Olympic year this year’s July Hog Hill event saw a return to The Razorback Games name. Whilst the IOC have now decided to include skateboarding in the Tokyo 2020 games they have still failed to recognise the racing disciplines that would make sense to include. The Razorback games is our alternative and featured Slalom, Downhill, Freestyle, Luge and all aspects of Longboarding and also saw a welcome return of High Jump. The event was as usual jointly run by the UKSSA and DAS Industries. With Andy Turner having to attend the Slimming World Slimmer of the year awards in Derby on the Sunday board collector extraordinaire and UKSSA stalwart Paul Coupe stepped up to the plate to take on the transportation of the ramps. 

Saturday’s slalom racing began as usual with the Dual Hybrid. Numbers were slightly down on previous years but what we lacked in numbers we made up for in the quality and experience of the racers.  The top 8 fastest qualifiers would form the A Group and the rest the B Group.

The A Group was hotly contested and featured 3 of the UK’s old established LSD racers in the shape of Chris Charalambous, Dobie Campbell and Chris Linford; each bringing their own classic and stylish form of racing to the hill which was great to see. The rest of the A Group was made up with Pavel riders Louis Selby and Sam Gordon,PigCity’s Ben Williams, Paul Taylor Crush from Cambridge and the big man himself Paul Coupe.  In the round of 8 Louis ran clean and dispatched Paul Coupe with relative ease and despite a heavy cone count in this first run Ben took Paul TC out of the running. Pavel man Sam eliminated Chris Linford who had come down from Buxton for the weekend and in the old boy match up it was Chris Charalambous that progressed after Dobie was so zoned out that as the beep sounded he stayed fixed to the start ramp leaving him an insurmountable mountain to climb in his second run.  The round of four saw a great race between Louis and Chris but the Pavel young gun was just too quick with only a cone and half a second separating them. Ben’s cone count was to be his undoing leaving Sam to face his teammate Louis in the final. In the consolation round the usual clean running Chris hit four cones in his first run leaving Ben to claim the Bronze after he put in two blistering clean runs. The final saw a great fast close first run by both Pavel men and despite one cone penalty Louis went into the second run with a 0.18 second advantage over Sam. In the second run Sam took out three cones at the end of the course handing Louis the gold medal position on the podium. 

 

As ever the B Group saw some really good quality racing and the standard continues to go from strength to strength. Paul Borrell’s first Round of 8 heat against John Nicolas was very close with both riders running clean but he came undone on his second run picking up two cone penalties leaving John to advance. John had taken a very heavy slam earlier but got himself together enough to carry on racing.  Andy Turner knocked out Trevor Hickey and Trevor Baker beat the ever improving Dill Hill. Despite my cone count against Alec Brown I was fast enough to squeeze into the round of four.  John consigned me to the consolation round as once again my lack of practice, racing from the timing table and cone count went against me (any old excuse eh Ashby?) An incredibly close race between Andy and Trevor saw the latter advance to the final by a margin of just 0.14 seconds.  My hopes of stealing third place from Andy were dashed when I took too wide a line on my second run and couldn’t pull it back on track despite the uber fast grippy yellow Kryptonics I was running on the rear. In the final between old Dread City riders the racing was fast, furious and close but John took the Gold from Trevor, his five cone penalties being his undoing and so he had to settle for the silver. 

Sunday kicked off with Giant Slalom on the main hill.
At The Crackling in May Sam cleaned up in both the Hybrid and Giant and having lost out on the gold medal to friendly rival Louis in Saturday’s Hybrid was out to retain his GS crown. With a relatively small field we opted for best of three runs rather than the usual two. The course was fast and suitably challenging. The sky looked a bit menacing when racing started and we did have to call a halt to proceedings for a light shower. However with the light breeze the warm tarmac dried pretty quickly. All racers were managing to shave their times down with each run but it was Louis that had set the time to beat on his first run with clean run 25.57. But even Sam who had donned his usual figure hugging lycra top but the speed that had been on his side in May eluded him this time and he could only manage a best time of 25.66 with two cone penalties. Third was Ben on 27.30 picking up three cone penalties.

 

With still half a day left after the GS and the afternoon sun shining brightly Paul Coupe suggested to the riders that they set up a single lane Tight Slalom course on the hill used for the Hybrid and have an impromptu competition recording the times on the “Top Gear” board. During the allotted time the order chopped and changed frequently. It was left to veteran LSD TS maestro Chris Charalambous to show his finely honed skills where as good as ever and ran fast, stylish and clean. All riders challenged hard but couldn’t quite knock Chris off the top of the board. John Nicholas, Dobie and Paul Coupe all came close but Chris wasn’t going let his gold medal place go recording a best time of 11.19.

It would be good if we could try and make TS a regular feature at future events – where time and weather permit? After all theUKused to excel at once upon a time! 

The next scheduled event at Hog Hill will be Hogtoberfest over the weekend of 15^th – 16 October so keep an eye out for news of that in all the usual places in the coming weeks.

 Thank you once again to: Michael Stride and Octane Sport for providing race support, sponsorship and prizes, Kryptonics Wheels, D Street and all of our other generous sponsors,  Paul Coupe for transporting the ramps up from my sister’s in West Sussex, My sister and RK Case Contractors for providing the ramp storage, Sam Gordon for all of his organisation, sign up assistance and financial administration, Timmy Peters and DAS Industries for organisation, logistics and running a very smooth sign up, Seismic Skate for providing race spreadsheets, and all the UKSSA crew and racers for all mucking in and helping out which all goes towards making for yet another very enjoyable weekend of skating.

Finally big thanks to Ian Coles and all at Redbridge Cycling Centre for putting up with us once again and a special thanks to Sylvia and her team for feeding and watering us.

 The Razorback Games 2016 Results

Hybrid A Group

 

1. Louis Selby
2. Sam Gordon
3. Ben Williams
4. Chris Charalambous
5. Dobie Campbell
6. Paul Taylor Crush
7. Chris Linford
8. Paul Coupe

 

Hybrid B Group

 

1. John Nicholas
2. Trevor Baker
3. Andy Turner
4. Rob Ashby
5. Alec Brown
6. Dill Hill
7. Trevor Hickey
8. Paul Borrell
9. Polina Fokicheva

 Time keepers: Rob Ashby/Sam Gordon

 Giant Slalom

(Raw times – cone penalties in brackets)

 1.    Louis Selby                                25.570           

2.    Sam Gordon                              25.660            (2)      

3.    Ben Williams                             27.300            (3)      

4.    Paul Taylor Crush                    28.020            (3)      

5.    John Nicholas                           28.610            (1)

6.    Lance Martins                           28.740           

7.    Chris Charalambous               28.550            (2)      

8.    Paul Borrell                               29.370           

9.    Paul Coupe                                29.000            (2)      

10.  Trevor Hickey                           29.950           

11.  Dill Hill                                      29.630            (3)      

12.  Alec Brown                                30.830            (3)

 Timekeeper: Rob Ashby

Tight Slalom (Single lane, 41 cones)

(Raw times – cone penalties in brackets)

 

1.   Chris Charalambous                11.19

2.   John Nicholas                           11.42

3.   Paul Coupe                                  11.50

4.   Dobie Campbell                         11.75              (2)

5.   Paul Borrell                                 12.03              (1)

6.   Paul Taylor Crush                     12.14              (1)

7.   Trevor Baker                               12.46              (1)

8.   Trevor Hickey                            12.69

9.   Alec Brown                                 12.61              (1)

10. Dill Hill                                       13.02              (2)

11. Andrea Paro                               13.25              (2)

 Head Timekeeper: John Nicholas