Last week, I had the eye opening experience of witnessing what I imagine to be the two opposing faces of skateboarding, granted I’m still searching for Animal Chin so my skate knowledge is a bit on the rusty side. But, on one side we have “the skate til you puke or til your brains get smashed into the concrete and then get up and skate some more” Trifecta which conveniently butts up against the “i need to win some money for the new addition on my house and oh by the way drink a ……rockstar, monster, red bull etc.” Dew tour. The Trifecta is a three day Dreamland park extravaganza that kicks off every year at the Lincoln City skatepark, home of Dreamland owner Mark “Red” Scott and continues on to two other Northwest skateparks picked by the skaters and is run by non other than the notorious Choppy Omega. The Dew Tour is ….well you probably already know it, because it’s the mainstream action sports media blow out, no not the X-games, the other one that has five stops.
This was my first Trifecta experience and I left there with this overwhelming sense of awesomeness that only comes from witnessing true heart and soul, or blood and guts, or whatever you want to call it. That energy that is skating for skatings sake, for the love of it….blahditty blah blah.. You get the idea, parking lots full of people there to skate the best parks in the Northwest and well…… maybe drink a few six packs but ya know in honor of skateboarding and friends and old times and stuff…
Fast forward to the Dew Tour or actually take your speeding booze cruise to a screeching halt and get your credentials checked by no less then 5 people in 5 minutes at the Dew Tour. Welcome to the world of arena shred, which feels suspiciously like being thrust into the ice capades; complete with personalized songs to match personalized runs, with spot lights and TV holds and those guys that can do that voice, you know the voice that makes everything sound simply amazing even though it’s chock full of shit and sugar. Anyway, do I have a point….hmmmm, no not exactly I mean I am a competitive snowboarder for crying out loud, I get the personalized runs and the made for TV action and I think that both sides need to co-exist and both sides push the sport in different ways. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda of excited about the Dew Tour coming to snowboarding but it was such a refreshing change to see the energy of the Trifecta and to see that in this day and age when everything has a dollar sign on it people are still willing to drive their shit box cars from all over the place to get together, skate, puke and skate some more for the hell of it. So, thank you, thank you, thank you Choppy and everyone else who makes the Trifecta happen…..tricia
*sorry if I offended anyone and sorry for swearing… working on that.
Feel the Byrnes 