| Notes From The Guajataca Downhill |
| Written by Bobby Stack | |
| Tuesday, 27 January 2009 | |
Notes From The Guajataca Downhill![]() The adventure for this really started for us here in Miami. Working behind the scene really takes a lot of work and time Jan 22 Scoot arrives in Miami being from south you know that southern hospitality thing… And a skater 7 days a week it was important that Scoot had a chance to skate while he was here in Miami. Miami is like No other place that I have skated in all reality it is long board heaven we have over 25 garages all different in less than 2sq miles All you got to do is park and ride… No driving So we set up a session for Scoot that lasted from 8pm til about 2am then it was off to South Beach for one garage then dinner and drinks. About 4 am we called a night and set home. Scoot was already on borrowed time coming from Canada and it was time to call it a night. On Friday due to my responsibilities with this event my day started at 8 am. Scoot slept til 1pm. It took us all day to get all prizes, promotional materials and do the suite case shuffle to try and save money due to weight restrictions at the airport. We ended up with only 1 extra bag between the group of 5. The only drag about going to Aguadilla is that the only flights are the red eye. We arrived at 3 in the morning. Passengers clapped when the plane landed and we were greeted by a crew of 10 people holding a sign that said “welcome to Puerto Rico scoot for the Guajataca Downhill race. From there we were all separated to different cars I rode with Hector ( tito el Pajaro) Valle we headed for the hotel (Paradero vista mar) to drop off our stuff and check in while driving there hector hands me itinerary for the weekend AS follows…. 3;30 am arrive at the hotel 4am rest 8:30 am breakfast 10 am practice runs 12:30pm lunch and signings 2pm surfing 4pm rest 7pm dinner 8 pm per party and signing 2am rest 9am practice 10am registration 12pm race 6pm end of race 7pm after party 1am back to the airport Our entourage arives at the hotel. I show scoot the itinerary and we look at each other and and scoot say they kidding I don’t want to surf I want to skate. I tell him that we are there quest and this is what they want lets just see what happens… Well right after that hector says….. To same some time lets go eat breakfast now that way you can sleep in a little longer. so they took us to this 24hr road stand that had some really good sandwiches after eating, it was back to the hotel by this time it was 530am at 8:30 out comes this sound of people sceaming BAJANDO means… coming down .. So I got dressed and went outside as I am coming out of my room I see riders coming down the mountain Don’t these people sleep… I see hector on the last turn and he say want to skate?? Sure I say let me wake up everybody. Went and put on my leathers and came back outside DAM those leathers are hot after standing there in the heat for 45min waiting for everyone to come out of there room.. Finally a ride up to the top. We get out of the truck and hector says lets take it slowly the first time so you can get the feel of the road… Being CBS crazy Bobby Stack I followed hector for about a ¼ of a mile and said srew this… get out of the way!! What a blast … here comes Bob.. balls to the walls no braking made it all the way down until the last hair pin I hit the last hair pin close to 48mph way to fast for the last turn at least for me ended up sliding the board to a stop right on the corner Ok back up I go this time I airbraked coming into the s turn to slow my self down before I hit the last hair pin O WELL…. Maybe that is one of the reasons they call me CBS it just was not enough I am glad I was wearing leathers But it did not help my torn Clavicle from last Sept. or my broken toe So at this point I was finished. Which really worked out because I would have not seen all the things that happened during the race. At 12pm we were all off to the local burger king for lunch and for scoot to do some signings. They were about 50 people there getting boards signed shirts and mags GOD I need some Ibuprofen… about 2 pm scoot got his wish instead of surfing and going to the beach his escort took him up to the mountain with an entourage to follow I took off with the rest of the elders to the beach for some R and R … I was back at the hotel and was introduced to rosy and shatana after hanging out with them for an hour or so they told me that they were not able to go to the party that they had to put the prize packs together 24 of them to be exact so I suggested to bring the prizes my room so we can do them there since I had half of them already from the main land that I brought. They were really cool with that idea they told me they would come back around 9pm MAN.. that’s great… I can sleep for 2 hours At around 9pm the girls arrived with prizes in hand and a bottle of rum YA BABY!!! So I guess it would be safe to say we had our own party until about 130am .. About 5am scoot and Santiago made back from the party WAIT!! How about PARTYS.. At 9am it was off to the event I had banner to put up and make sure the webcam was working ( promise… next time with the cam it will be better) BUT it is a start… by 10:30 the streets were filling up with people the vendors were set up people sitting on the side of the road barbeque lighting up music blasting first race started about 12pm the groms… they had about 12 kids 9 and under for this race there race was a lot shorter it only ran for ¼ mile downhill after the first heat I went inside this bar on the side of the road to get myself a pina colada with some rum WHY NOT I not racing today I walked back up to the starting line and was aloud to start some of the races. After that my first drink was gone and it was time for another so I walked back down the mountain where I found the road side bar and bought another then it was off down the mountain to the finsh line and to start my job of raising hell with all the spectators. O MY GOD you would think I was throwing money into the streets the way the were fighting over the stickers … I( finally made down to the finsh line in time for the 14 to 24 group to come down this is were all the fun started.. In one of the heats one rider pushed another while they were going down this was no accident after they crossed the finsh line this one kid got off his board and punched the other in the face for pushing him. A crowd gathers people screaming. After the fight broke up the judges ask me for a ruling on this. if I thought they should be both out for the rest of the event I am saying to myself WHY ME?? Well my answer was yes you guys are out here the one for the force on the track and the other for fighting unsportsmanlike. After about 2 hours the master were up hector the bird man had the lead killing everybody behind him.. THEN all of a sudden here comes this Ice cream truck down the track the master are in there second heat everybody screaming at the ice cream to get off the track WELL….. That is what he did because the riders were closing in on the finish line. The ice cream man had to get out of there fast He took the finish line with him… the top of his truck snagged onto the blow up arch from red bull and he ended up dragging it down the mountain If I didn’t have to run and jump to get out of the way I would have had a picture of it happening it was a true Kodak moment …After that t scoots heat started racing. Scoot took the race in all 3 heat then it was time for the open race this was a mad race everyone starts at the same time 16 plus people .. Scoot had the lead and then…….
View from hotel, and hectors wife and I. Me rosy and shatana bagging prizes and drinking rum
The people that attended |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 05 April 2009 ) |