The Onterrible Report: Maryhill FOS

Words By Jason Epp

Maryhill FOS 2012 

Bright and early on June 27^th a handful of skaters pile into the PDX Sk8 bus outside Rip City Skates in Portland, Oregon. Many riders weary from the travels passed with delayed flights, missed connections, and missing baggage to name some of the hardships associated with traveling coast to coast for the 3^rd leg of both the IGSA NorAm and World Cup series; the infamous Maryhill Festival of Speed.  The excitement was high as the Sk8 bus began to roll out of Portland, with a quick stop in Hood River for some groceries and an impromptu bowl session at the skate park we were now almost to Goldendale, Washington for one of the most iconic races in the IGSA circuit. As we approached the racecourse you could see the rows of wind turbines spread along the skyline with a winding strip of smooth black pavement snaking down the side of the golden valley. We were here.

As we arrived fashionably late it was time to register and complete tech inspection, the name of the game for the next two days was to see how many practice runs your legs could handle before first day of qualifying on Friday. This being a world cup event there were fiercely competitive riders here from all corners of the globe to represent their respective countries. As the first 2 days went on and the riders began dialing the course the packs started getting bigger faster and hairier with the tailwind increasing as each day went on. These tailwinds lead to a few injuries by the end of the 2^nd day including a dislocated shoulder by Toronto local and Skate Invader Alex Megit unfortunately putting him out for the remainder of the event. The winds speed at times made for this surreal silence where the only thing you heard was your wheels on the pavement, and air breaking was rendered useless. This also meant that a few of the right hand turns had a headwind going into them making other portions of the course much easier to navigate.

First qualifying run happened after one practice run on the Friday morning and order was determined by your previous year world ranking. As the days went on the wind increased which generally favored the top ranked riders who were the last to do their qualifying runs. At the end of the first day people had laid down some solid times including Douglas “Dalua” Silva setting a new track record with a time of 3:05.662. The next day the winds were stronger and many people were looking to improve upon their previous times, and that is exactly what happened for most. Just 24 hours after the previous track record was broken Zak Maytum put down a 3:05.523 securing him the new track record and the pole position for the 2012 MFOS. After second round quail it was time for the last chance race for rider ranking from 93-140 in qualifying to try and secure the last 4 spots for race day followed by the king of the hill race. After qualifying it was looking like rain was imminent and the tailwinds were blowing hard which made for some interesting heats with lots of crashed at Cowsers. The rain having finally come down the King of the hill race heat had decided to race sitting down to avoid any risk of injury for race day.

Race day was now upon us with the brackets set and the heats stacked.  This was definitely the most competitive race I have seen with 2^nd round brackets looking almost like potential final heats it kept the racing tight and exciting. Like any competitive race there was no shortage of issues on the race hill either, with Byron Essert losing his 2^nd place position in the Junior B finals, the Junior A finals requiring a re-run, and having Kevin Reimer and Billy Bones crashing at the start line in the open finals. Patrick Switzer took the gold for his second time followed very closely by Zak Maytum and Alex Tongue then Kevin Reimer, Douglas “Dalua” Silva who crashed during the finals and Billy “Bones” Meiners. Big congratulations to Ontario riders Luke Melo (22^nd) Braden Tibbles (31^st) Justin Readings (57^th) and Cam Brick (71^st) for killing it at one of the most competitive races around.