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| Brett Banasiewicz with Daniel Sandoval in the background here kicking off the contest correctly! Photo Credit: Dans Comp |
The Kitchen BMX & Skatepark’s 3rd annual
Pro/Am competition started in typical Maddog fashion with Brett in a car chase
with the South Bend Police Dept. Fifteen
minutes into our live feed Brett called to warn me he was coming in hot with
the cops on his tail!
Once he shook the coppers, Brett grabbed his BMX and took a
few hot laps around his park before stopping atop Mt. Banasiewicz (the newly
built huge step up). The entire building erupted with applause as we kicked off
an amazing weekend in South Bend, IN.
The
day began with the beginner class warming up on the course quickly followed by
the Pros for qualifiers. The new course
layout was well received by the Pros and they were surely having fun with
it. The amount of transfers and new
lines being used on the course was no less than insane to see in real
life. All of the riders were killing the
park that Brett built! As expected, Pro
Qualifiers were off the chain and I for one am glad I wasn’t a judge for this
one. |
| The Judeges for the Weekend Matt Bischoff - Mark Flip - Dave Freimuth |
Prior to the Finals we held a round of “Crowd Funded” Street
Competition. What is this you ask? This is when we ask everyone from the crowd
pitch in $5 bucks to help make it rain on riders killing the street
course. The rider with the most cash at
the end of time is pronounced the winner, and their cash is the prize. The
competition got off to a great start with Chris Gerber, Ryan Guettler and the
Maddog himself throwing out $$’s for bangers. The whole clan ended up with at least
some lunch money, but Glenn Salyers won the most loot rounding in at about
$250.
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| The "Starting Gate" for the Street Comp |
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| Chris Gerber (stocking cap) with Ryan Guettler (Monster hat) counting up the near $500 worth of donated money for the street comp! |
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| Long Distance Gap To Red Rail was one of the won some $$'s Photo Credit: Dan's Comp |
The Saturday night Finals went off with explosive
power. Daniel Sandoval placed 3rd
this year highlighted by a “Tailwhip to Decade Air” that you can find on any social
media outlet. 2nd Place went
to Alex Landeros who has an odd taste for raw oysters and killing huge gaps on
the box section. 1st place was awarded to Mike
Varga, the only male Canadian to enter this year’s contest. Mike completely worked the Kitchen over
throughout the weekend. A well deserved
victory, Mr. Varga!
This year’s competition featured The Kitchen’s first ever
live feed. This addition enabled
spectators from all over the planet to watch the action live on the
Web. A big thank you to Walton WebCasting for doing an amazing job, we look forward to doing it again next
year! Also, a big thank you goes out to
Justin Hardin from Solution Action Sports for helping out with the registration
process as well as emceeing the live feed with me and special guest, Chris
Gerber. We had a few appearances by the
house emcee DK Bicycles very own, Trevor Gay.
The standard issue locals like Jordan Bowen, Danny Rumple and Brandon
Wolfman were also on hand and rode with the Pros.. I had the
opportunity to interview many of the big names like Daniel Sandoval, Ryan
Guettler, Brandon Dosch, David Leib and Big Ben Eyelander to name a few. For more details and live action make sure to
check out the 6+ hours of live feed via the link at the bottom of the page!
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| Alex Landeros Upside Down Flip Whip the Super Long Way! Photo Credit Dan's Comp |
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| Glenn Salyers Looping a Barrel Roll over the last box, Glenn straight kills anything he rides! Photo Credit: Dan's Comp |
Another addition to this year’s competition was an amazing
showing from the girls in BMX! I had the
pleasure to call these fine young ladies on the in house mic. All the ladies did a fantastic job out there!
3rd Place in the Girls Class went to Janet Kukulski who even
surprised herself with the podium as she just started riding back in September 2013. Keep at it Janet, you’re killing it. 2nd
place went to a well-deserved, Nikita Ducarroz who came out swinging with a
backflip on her very first run! 1st
Place was awarded to our local 12 year old, Hannah Roberts out of
Michigan. Hannah wowed the judges by
doing tuck no hander transfers and flying around the Kitchen with ease. Hannah is so hardcore that she injured her
wrist and refused to go get it checked out until after the awards presentation. In my eyes, all of the girls did an amazing
job in this contest!
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| Click here to see the Women of Freestlye's page - WWW.WOFBMX.COM |
The Intermediate & Expert classes also went down on Sunday. The New Jersey crew definitely came out, turned the Kitchen Oven all the way up, and put a hurting on the scoreboards. Eddie Rovie topped up the Intermediates and Matty Cranmer takes it for the Expert Class both from Jersey - Incline Club Represent!
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| Pro Class - 3rd Daniel Sandoval, 2nd Place Alex Landeros, 1st Place Mike Varga |
4. Glenn Salyers 5. Brandon Dosch 6. Ben Eylander 7. Trent Newkirk 8. Nick Bruce 9. Brian Fox 10. David Lieb
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| Expert Class - 3rd Hank Kujawa, 2nd Gage Leiter, 1st Matty Cranmer |
4. Jamie Cooper Ellis 5. Cameron Girvin 6. Jack Straiton 7. Devon Fish 8. Jordan Oliver
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| Girls Class - 3rd Janet Kukulski, 2nd Nikita Ducarroz, 1st Hannah Roberts |
4. Kiera Bonifacio 5. Brooke Betencourt 6. Kimix Klisiak 7. Katie Munn 8. Trista Hartman 9. Dennise Rivea 10. Daniela Lifuentes 11. Sydney Emmans 12. Lauren Roberts
A huge thank you to everyone who supported this event in one way or another. And very special Thank you from myself directly to Bill & Lisa Banasiewicz and all of the Kitchen Staff who helped keep the weekend together. I can't wait for next spring to come around Northern Indiana! See all of you at a BMX event somewhere real soon!
Here is a video of the Pro Finals done a fellow rider Tristan aka "TwisterX15" on Youtube Give him a folllow!
-Rich Hoppe
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