Report from Maryhill: 

First Day of Qualifying:  Mischo Erban, Matthias Lang, John Fryer, Tobias Wohrle and McIntrye are Fastest!

96 speedboarders, more than two dozen luge racers, a smattering of Inline DH racers and a few Gravity Bikes spent Thursday in the first round of qualifying for the IGSA World Cup at Maryhill.  More will arrive tomorrow for more excellent weather and fast runs on a butter-smooth hill, but they missed a great day of racing.  The morning featured multi-racer freerides, and then qualifying began after lunch.  Mike McIntyre rolled his 3/4 faired Gravity Bike for the fastest run of the day for anyone:  3:01.269’, a full ten seconds faster than Mischo Erban’s TQ run!   Everyone was fast, nobody got hurt and the townspeople came out in droves to meet the athletes during a reception and autograph signing at the local McDonald’s.

The morning at Maryhill Festival of Speed started in Ekone Park with a pancake breakfast for all the racers and campers – courtesy of the town of Goldendale and made fresh by volunteers, right there in camp.  Coffee, orange juice, great pancakes and cheerful folks encouraging the racers and stoked to have them in this town.  This turns out to be par for the course with Goldendale’s welcoming nature and support for the Festival of Speed.

On the hill, the morning was reserved for practice runs and freeride fun in groups and the shuttle trucks were kept busy!  If you want to ride Maryhill under optimum conditions in terms of pavement, weather and safety containment on the road, there is no better time than now!   More of this, tomorrow morning, too!

After lunch, it was time to let the racers time-trial for their first round of qualifying to race in the World Cup.  In front of a medium-sized crowd that included 20 or 30 spectators from the highway overlook a quarter-mile from the race course, the downhill skateboard class began qualifying runs first.  Speedboarder Mischo Erban set the bar for Downhill Skateboarding, at 3:11.696’, a full 1.5 seconds faster than the second place qualifier!  Others looked fast, nobody crashed out and the hill was clean all day.  IGSA starter Bob Ozman churned a steady stream of skaters down the hill, and the updated TAG Heuer timing system spat data out as the racers came across the line, spaced about a minute apart, for an hour and a half! 

For full results of all the qualifying, and photographs from every class of racing, check out Marcus Reitema’s Day 3 Report in the event thread, HERE , and photographs of every class in the galleries, HERE .

After the qualifying round, most of the racers rolled back into Goldendale for a reception at the McDonald’s restaurant.  The Golden Arches sponsor David Dean and feature him streetluging on beverage cups used all over the USA.  The local store and radio station advertised a night to meet the athletes, and it went off huge.  Mc’D’s churned out free food for the racers, cheerful service for everyone else and hosted an autograph signing party that had IGSA racers signing posters, Concrete Wave magazines, Festival of Speed flyers and shirts handed out by major sponsor, Ex Drinks.  It was amazing, and quite a stoke to watch the local residents enjoy meeting the speedboarders.

After the party at Ronald McDonald’s, we cruised over to the middle school for the premiere screening of Livin’ Free, the lifestyle movie about skaters longboarding across American towns for the pure stoke of it.  It was a fun time and the producers revealed that they’ve been shooting HD video of the racing – to be edited and revealed at the big post-race party on Saturday night!  

Okay, it’s late and now the parties have relocated to the campground and the Ponderosa Motel.  At the campgrounds, the fires burn late, the beer flows freely and it’s a total festival.  At the Ponderosa, race organizer John Ozman organized the mountain of schwag that will be distributed in addition to the CASH prizes while Marcus Rietema and Bob Ozman reviewed the qualifying stats and prepared the Friday materials.  David Dean and unnamed others raged in a beer fest and your correspondents Kingston, Basil and crew formatted photos and uploaded a massive run to the new galleries.  Our eyes are bleeding and the updates are done…

Go Skate!