Saturday, August 12 was the King of NOVA Downhill skateboard race. The turn out wasn’t huge, but it was very core with the likes of Adam Colton and many of Silverfish’s own. The day was beautiful with temperatures in the 80's with low humidity. The hill is a 40 – 45mph hill with a long, hard right-hand sweeping hairpin going into a straight-away, followed by a very mellow, right-sweeper to the finish with uphill run out. With a little sweeping, the course was ready and practice began as more people showed up. In all there were 11 people either watching or racing.

      Practice finished and, by 1:30pm, we figured out the format and decided that we would have a head-to-head “b” class with two kids racing from ¾ from the bottom. We gave them one push and each time off the line Michael (thisisme) had a strong enough push to beat Zach (texastuck88) his competitor taking the class title in only 2 races as it was best two out of three.

      As we were waiting for them to get back to the top of the hill to run the four man heats of the “a” group, a huge water truck came down the road and started watering the new sod of the newly built hous.  This put a damper (pun intended) on our plans, so we waited until the road was dry.  To pass the time, we had a little impromptu longest stand-up slide competition.  It was extremely intense watching Adam and Ryan throwing 20 to 30 foot stand-up slides like it was their business!  Adam ended up getting the longest and then an all out slidefest erupted as we were each trying to show each other our stuff. 720 slides, one footed pendys, and lay backs were just a few of the stylish slides thrown. By the time we were nearing wearing ourselves out the street was dry and it was time to take a water break and start racing again.

      The first heat had Adam use his pushing skills to get out in front as I (longboardertwan) tucked into his draft.  We were followed by a close race for 3rd, between Kyle (V1RG1N14 L0ON804RD3R) and Ryan (ryan). With the first heat done, the standings were Adam, Anthony, Kyle, Ryan. On the second heat, we all moved over one position at the start line.  This time, the push off was much closer. Once again, I tucked in behind Adam to catch his draft and got right on him through the left sweeper but couldn’t get the inside line to pass & had to go outside out of his draft to avoid hitting him, which I was mere inches from doing! This was the fastest run of the day, clocking in on the gps at 44.6 mph. The next run was the most intense of the whole event. The push off was dead even all across the line and, coming into the left hander, we were three wide with Kyle picking up speed and making it in between Ryan and I making it 4 wide halfway through the corner. There was a little contact between Kyle and Ryan which sent Ryan on a wild slide straight off the road on his butt. Leathers were very important at this point! Kyle and Adam got ahead after the turn and I got in Kyle’s draft and made my way in between the two of them with me and Kyle leaning against each other trying not to take all three of us out as we crossed the finish like three wide with everyone scratching their head as to whether Kyle or Adam crossed first. Ryan decided to just watch the final heat and video tape it from the chase car leaving myself, Kyle and Adam for the final heat. Off the line, Adam had us beat with me and Kyle completely even & fighting for Adam’s draft.  Kyle ultimately prevailed with the drafting and the race for position to the finish. We then realized that Kyle and I were tied for second overall, so we had a head-to-head runoff for second. I pushed out ahead but Kyle caught my draft and passed me at the exit of the turn and I tucked behind him and caught his draft but ran out of hill to catch him on giving Kyle second place overall!