It was my first ever NASS. I wasn’t sure what to expect but on the drive there I was hearing stories of past NASS experiences like a huge fire made of tents, Ambulances on call for incidents in the mosh pits and everyone’s things getting stolen from tents from locals that broke into the site. Having a lot of equipment, the last one interested me the most so I kept my backpack on all weekend, then during the first day I heard stories of press guys camera’s being stolen and phones going missing on an hourly basis. Aside from all the bad things happening, it no way affected my amazing weekend and finally seeing rollerblading take centre stage and getting the crowd and respect we deserve. Having international skaters like Aragon, Haffey, Broskow and Bailey competing against locals Julian Coulter, Sam Tuffnell and Fraser Watson to name a few, the stage was set for a world class competition.
We arrived Thursday night late and had to set our tent up in the dark and light rain. We checked out the new coarse purpose built for the comp and spotted big gaps and imagined the type of stunts that would go down over the next 3 days. After a freezing night in our tents everyone was on the spine-mini ramp early to warm up before the street was open. It was a sick 6 ft spine ramp with a sub block at one end and 9 panel wide. The ramp wasn’t dry across the middle but that didn’t stop anyone including myself to a session to get the legs warmed up and build the confidence for later. In England, it’s not very often skaters from all over come together for anything but Joe from Kingdom did a fantastic job of making sure everyone with talent got a competitors pass and was there to showcase rollerblading to it’s fullest. Here’s some sequences from the session. I was also skating so there’s not very many.
Leon Humphries, Fishy-soul-fish
Ian Henrie, 270 Topsoul
Around 12pm the street opened. Rollerbladers filled the course with everyone feeling out the brand new ramps and wearing in the coping. The ply was fast and floor was smooth. The huge launch box was getting used, the curved wallride over the hip was taking falls but not many people touching the huge spine in the middle of the coarse. It seemed to me alot poeple had tricks but no one really had a run. There were some wicked stunts pulled by Julian Coulter (gap topsoul to the floor)
and Andy Spary with a tru-spin mizuo to gap to the floor
But these were really the highlights of their run as it was hard to see anyone using thier whole minute until Sam Tufnell. Sam dropped in with a lot of speed and powered the whole length of the course hitting the bullseye 10 feet over the top of the 8ft quarter then powering to the spine hitting a 540 transfer into the landing of the launch box. Stopping only for a second then dropping in to power the to the other end into a fishbrain stall on the 10ft wallride to ensure his place through to the next day. Julian Coulter also coming up with some original transfers linking big tricks and flowing a line for the minute getting him through also along with Zach Whitelaw.
Sam with the Fishy Stall and Blake Bird showing his surprise
Saturday saw a similar story to the first day but this time around pro’s like Brian Aragon and Chris Haffey were the ones setting the pace. The course was set out with hips, wall stalls and coping tricks. Street skaters really had to adapt which showed in alot of runs without success. Sam and Julian stuck to the their winning runs from the day before and it payed off with both going through to the finals on Sunday.
Brian Aragon, 540 from the spine to the launch box
The finals came on Sunday with all the pro’s stepping thier game by pushing themselves and working out thier winning runs. Aragon with 900’s, Lomax with a the bullseye stall to fakie and Chaz Sands hitting the 360 to wallride around the corner. Unfortunatly for Sam he had all the speed but the pressure got to him missing his huge fishbrain stall on the vert. The big surprise coming through was Frazer Watson who skated the whole weekend and worked on his winning tricks over and over. He was pulling a 720 on the quarter, flips on the step up and the only person to transfer from the launch box over the gap into the small wedge to wedge funbox. He managed to link all the these tricks together in one of his final runs but couldn’t do it for both as fatigue got to him but he set the standard high for the visiting pro’s to step up to. Jenna Downing linked an amazing run with soo many tricks and was soo consistant but again falling in her final run as did alot putting them out of the top 3. Julian came through with an awesome run and hitting switch-ups on the coping when it counted taking 5th place for the weekend. Chris Haffey was sick trying to incorporate as many of his skills as possible going huge over the hips and over the box picking up 2nd place. Brian Aragon also stepping his runs with a 900 over the hip, a fakie wallride round the corner and a massive 540 on the quarter pipe getting enough points for third place.
Chris Haffey, Huge 540 over the Hip
The surprise winner, Frazer Watson. Everyone must have forgotten his amazing first run because it was a huge shock to the crowd, skaters and himself when it was announced he’d taken away first place. There was no real douting the decision as Frazer skated soo well and put together an awesome 1 minute run with hammer after hammer but there was one more prize up for grabs.
Here’s some tricks from the finals..
Nick Lomax, Huge 360
Chaz Sands, 360 wallride around the corner
The Richard Taylor Best Trick Award.
Joe with the best trick award
Everyone was soo tired from skating all day so only a few gathered in the middle for the last skate of the weekend. Nick Lomax was first up by back royalling around the curved wallride and lacing it soo nice. The winners were yet to be announced at this stage so Frazer was still skating and got a huge amount of speed setting up to 720 the gap he 540’d in his run. Being very tired really played a role in this trick as when he landed his knee gave way and he really hurt himself stopping his skating.
Fraser Watson, unsuccessful 720 transfer in the best trick comp
Last up was Sam Tuffnell. I got an inside word from Joe to get into position as Sam had planned to drop in off the roof into the huge bank. Sam had helped all week on building this skatepark, he watched guys do all the transfers, all the huge gaps before the first person walked in the door. He told me on friday it would be nuts, but possible from someone to try this drop-in. I even think he may have planned it during the week when they positioned this ramp. Either way he was making his way the stairs to the awaiting Rob Taylor for the final high five then BAMN!, with no hesitation, he dropped in. The crowd went nuts and unfortunately he couldn’t take the big drop and slid out. He headed back up the stairs for another try. By this time people where running in from outside hearing the cheers and the crowd rushed onto the street coarse to get a better view. Sam, straight up tried it again, this time jumping to far out and landing half way down the ramp bouncing him off it and sliding out again. He really wanted to land it so for a 3rd time he headed back up the stairs. The crowd was really screaming by this time so Sam looked down the 20ft drop and did it one last time. Landing kinda to one side his knee gave way and so did his hope of landing this stunt. He barely got up and limped off. This crazy stunt could only win the award as people remember the late great Richard Taylor for trying such stunts in past NASS events. It was only fitting Sam walked away with the trophie presented to him by Rob Taylor. Later this week i found out Sam actually broke his leg and is now spending a 3 months in a cast. He still says it was worth it..
Sam Tuffnell, With the amazing 20ft drop in
Sam getting the best trick award from Rob Taylor
I’d just like to thank publicly everyone from Kingdom. Joe worked non-stop for months in preparation for NASS. To all the sponsors to send thier pro riders to the comp. All the skaters that made the trek across the country with full car loads of tents, seats and skates to make this event amazing and really showing the public what rollerblading is all about. Even the NASS camera men who were filming the event missed the skateboarding finals to interview the 3 finalists of the rollerblading and said it was one of the most amazing real competitions they’ve ever seen. I had an awesome time camping all weekend and i urge everyone to make the effort to go this event next year as Kingdom Magazine have set a new standard in bringing rollerblading back to NASS. Here are some pics from over the weekend. You can check out the next issue of Kingdom for more hot photo’s from NASS.
Fraser Watson with the his 360 huge transfer from the funbox launch
Alex, Jeff and Eric after setting up tents and chillin with a beer
Rollerbladers taking over the free Nando’s tent
Brian Aragon getting interviewed by NASS film crew
Winner Fraser Watson
Packing up, Jake Elay Mc’d and Rupert worked all weekend on the course and Kingdom booth.
The Big Drop, This is one of the ride’s at NASS. They take you up and hang you under the basket then it’s a free fall drop into the net.
I had time to shoot some rides in sideshow ally. A great time to test out long exposure’s
Another Ride with pretty colours…make up your own mind what you think it looks like ??
Dale's Travels 