Quervo Quarter-Pipe at Squaw Valley

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Jose Quervo QuarterPipe 2000 - Squaw Valley

   The cold northeast winds died down just in time for this $30,000 invitational contest to go on with beautiful weather. The winds had been blowing hard for a couple of days and was forecast to ease but still be strong for this Saturday the 1st day of April. The winds were too strong for the practice session that was scheduled for Friday, so the competitors only had the morning to get used to a hit that had the potential to launch them 20 feet or more above the 20 foot quarter-pipe with 5 foot vert extension. The wind was still up earl in the morning but backed down by mid-day and the temperatures quickly soared in the high 50s.
   The invitee list was full of top pros and some of the best local riders. The actual start list had to be filled in with some last minute locals and was conspicuously missing many of the top pros that were invited. Where was Kevin Jones and Peter Line? These guys have a decent life style snowboarding for a living, but it does not make sense to pass up a potential $10,000 1st prize.
   Any good rider that showed up that morning got a free entry into the qualifier to fill in the 6 available slots. These 12 qualifiers did not get any practice runs and were scored on their best run of 3. The qualifier was a contest of who could figure out this large quarter-pipe in 3 runs. Here is quote of advice from True Love (one of the qualifiers that did not make the cut) "Don't speed check!".
   The actual contest had 3 rounds. Rounds of 20, 8, and then the top 4 went at it for the big money. Each round had an additional $1,700 up for grabs in the Red Jersey competition for the rider that landed the highest air. Jim Moran went 16.5 feet in the round of 20 to take the 1st red jersey. Tom Gilles went 17 and 19.5 feet to take the other 2 red jerseys. There was an additional $1,000 up for grabs for the best trick of the contest, but I must have missed who won this one when it was all over.
   The lack of practice and the size of this quarter-pipe made for some nasty crashes that caused multiple injuries. Everybody managed to walk away on their own power, but a few were hurt bad enough to end their 99Y2K season. 2 of the 8 that qualified for the round of 8 had to pull out due to injury. A couple others that stayed in probably should have not continued as they carefully hucked this huge hit and then grabbed their hurting ribs as they mercifully stuck their landings.
   The final round of 4 went a lot like the earlier rounds with Willy Loma going large and Tom Gilles going larger. Sevan Bushard pulled 2 more clean Mc720s and Bjorn Leines pulling 1 of 2 large McTwists. The best score of the 2 runs counted so Bjorn took home the big cash with Sevan, Tom, and Willy getting their share of the prize pool and the bottles of Quervo.