On November 20th, the skaters stoking Brazil's cranking slalom scene put on an invitational race using the Formula 1 racetrack in São Paulo.  As we reported beforehand, the event was notable not only for the attendance of Jason Mitchell and Barrett Deck, but also that Thrasher Magazine's Jake Phelps went down to race slalom with Bob Burnquist.  Now, we've got the race report from our man in Brazil, Guto Jiminez:

Slalom at Interlagos:  The Brazilian Invitational 

The best race track in Latin America was dominated by urethane for the first time in its 35 years of existence.  Interlagos had had Formula One’s latest race in 2007 in October, and now unstoppable vehicles for the first time in its history. I mean no engines, no brakes, no gears, that kind of stuff…   November 20, 2007 was an historic day for Brazilian skateboarding, as well as for Interlagos’ history itself – slalom racing on a top quality recently repaved road, the kind of which we dream of most of our normal given days. It seemed to be kind of rough, looking like some black pressed granola, but ran smooth when I drag my foot on it. A ground-tire-asphalt made pavement which ran smooth as well between the 70 cones of the quarter-mile long circuit, prepared late on Monday night and early Tuesday morning by the local Cone Burners (Bruno Brown, Williams Indião, Rogerio Sammy) plus Barret “Chicken” Deck & Jason “Racer X” Mitchell.

The course seemed smooth but was way tricky at some points. A couple of sections made you go so fast that it would be really tough to make the last 6 cones, so much so that they had to make the finishing gate a little larger for the real fast guys to manage to go through. Well, as for myself, I enjoyed the hour-long sound system bug that allowed me to skate a whole lot more than I expected previously…

Back to the contest: the 40 competitors had skaters of all kinds and ages present to Interlagos. Some of them include all the afore mentioned guys up there and some of the top Brazilian slalom racers, such as Kako Max, Tiago “Gardenal Ratos”, Bruno “Japa”, Ricardo “Mikima”, Oscar “Mad” and others, as well as surprises such as Jake Phelps (Thrasher’s editor) and Bob Burnquist – yes, The Guy surprisingly went there, got himself a board and enjoyed his rides. Both applied for the contest but couldn’t race after all, since a major delay on the contest became an adversary of both Jake’s sudden sickness and Bob’s family affairs far from there. It would have definitely had been fun if those guys had managed to race, but oh well life & the show must go on.

Bruno Leonardo.

So it went. The 40 competitors had 3 runs for the cut to the 20, and then another 2 races to cut to the final 10; that was the plan, that is, if the threatening signs of incoming rain hadn’t made the organizers to decide that the semifinal results would count for final results. Which, by the way, weren’t any different ever since the first times were scored: Jason and Chicken were ruling on the course. Both were riding around 2 seconds faster then everybody else, and Mitchell was even 1 or 2 seconds faster; he was the winner of their private race and of the whole race itself, both got their large trophies & cash and countless award prizes, leaving for the cream of the crop of Brazilian slalom the other top positions. Tiago Gardenal and Kako Max got 3^rd and 4^th, also had some cash and major award prizes besides some air tickets for Salvador and Fortaleza, two of the most beautiful cities in the hot Northern region. That was a fair result for a great contest, the largest in Brazilian slalom of all times.

 

Many guys were the responsible for making this contest a success, but I’ll mention 3 of them: Wave Boys skate shop owner Bruno Brown and Plimax sales manager Williams “Indião” almost literally put their souls on the making of this contest. They always believed in the possibility of having this location permitted for skateboarding for the first time in over 35 years of the facility’s existence, and got the outstanding help from Tiago Lobo. This guy was the connection between the skaters and the multi-complex bureaucracy that such an event has to go through in our country; with his Liga de Esportes, he didn’t leave a single stone unturned until we had our race finished. All pats on the back, fat cigars and bottles of brandy for those three guys, please.

The Grande Prêmio Brasil de Skate Slalom was sponsored by Wave Boys, Pocket Pistols, Secretaria de Esportes da Prefeitura de São Paulo, Liga de Esportes and Skate Performance.

Supported by Red Bull, Gatorade, SeaWorld Tours, Centro de Pilotagem Roberto Manzini, Ford, Alva, Dogtown, ISSA, Spitfire, Sector 9, Speed Demons, Thunder, Freestyle, Krial, Diorandi.com, Distorção, Possessed, Hard World, Black Flys, Brigade Skate Shop, Red Beach, Khiro, Bell.

Official Press: Tribo Skate, Venice, 40 Polegadas e Thrasher Magazine.

Check out photos from Ignacio Aronovich at:  Lost Art