Everything you’ve heard about Utah is true. The beer is weak, missionaries roam the streets, and the locals all shred harder than you. Something about Salt Lake City helps breed gnarly riders. Maybe it’s the infamous Rail Gardens, maybe it’s the hydrating brew, or maybe even the good ol’ fashioned polygamy. Whatever it is, it’s working and it showed at the third stop of the Cricket Campus Rail Jam Tour. The boys from Galvanic Design setup shop at the University of Utah on Wednesday February, 25th and were rewarded with the best riding the Tour has ever seen. All in all, 80 of Salt Lake’s finest came out to represent and slide some metal.
Emcee Chimpy T – Laying down the law
The U of U classrooms must have been empty during the event because the whole school seemed to be posted up on the Union lawn watching the madness. Local homies, Skullcandy and ZAGG were on-site throwing out product and spreading the love. Keep an eye out for the new Skullcandy x Cricket Campus Rail Jam Tour collabo headphone! That “ish” is gonna be hot fire!
Al Wise and Adam Fleck – Chiefing cigs and getting the shot
As the first heat got underway it was evident that these kids meant business. Forget about sloppy tricks or half-assed presses, the riding was all textbook and the style was on point. Four twenty-person heats gave riders a chance to have some fun and impress judges in hopes of landing a spot in the finals, and that’s just what they did. While the comp was fun to watch there’s no telling how stressful it must have been to judge. Utah riders really knew how to utilize the features and got super creative with a mix of pretzels, presses, pivots and more degrees of rotation than the judges could count.
Garrett thinks someone did a neat trick
Judging is so fun!
The riding was solid during the whole event, but as the finals kicked off things started getting silly. Local duder, Trent Sanders, showed up late, and tired from a rough night of partying but still managed to unload his arsenal of tricks and drop hammers on every rail. From his nose and tail press combos to his switch backside tailslides, the kid was annihilating everything. Judges agreed and rewarded his hungover shredding efforts with a first place spot and some cash money. Slayers, Brandon Hammid and Chris Vogt, were also dropping jaws and laying down some serious tech tricks in the finals. Brandon’s 270 on and off the down-flat-down, and handplants on the ZAGG pyramid got the crowd psyched and made the judges smile, landing him second place on the podium and a brand new Omatic snowboard. Chris Vogt rounded up the pack in third with a frontside 180 to switch backside 540 off the box.
Trent Sanders – Makin’ that paper, SON!
As the ladies dropped in for the finals you could tell it was going to get wild. Madison Blackley was making the other girls sweat as she stomped her front blunt 270s on the handrail, owning first place. No big deal. Fellow lady ripper Erika Vikander held it down as well with powerful 5-0s on the handrail to claim second. Third on the podium was Gabby Maiden with a solid showing on all three features and a legit nosepress backside 180 on the “Tall Boy†box.
Madison “Media Frenzy” Blackley
The SLC skiers are from another planet. They must be. Take third place finisher McRae Williams for example. McRae decided he should 450 off the kink, then off the box…first try. Leo Zoberski joined in the fun and stepped things up with a 270 on the down-flat-down before popping 450 out. Leo’s “spin-to-win” efforts landed him a fresh new pair of Boone skis and second place on the podium. However, no one could touch first place whizkid, Jeff Kiesel’s switch-ups and switch hits to 450’s on the down-flat-down. Jeff walked away with some serious beer money and a full kit from our friends at Spyder.
There’s a lot of rotation in there. McRae Williams – 450 out
Leo Zoberski getting artsy
Jeff Kiesel likes to ski switch
The first two events of the Campus Rail Jam Tour saw zero lady skiers. Salt Lake City was a different story. Catherine Warchal showed up, dropped in, and 450’d the crowd’s face off.
Catherine repping for the infamous 4bi9ers
Catherine Warchal and her new friend
(L-R) McRae Williams (3rd), Jeff Kiesel (1st), Leo Zoberski (2nd)
(L-R) Chris Vogt (3rd), Trent Sanders (1st), Brandon Hammid (2nd)
A big thanks goes out to the Garrett, Jake, and everyone from the One Love Ski and Snowboard Club , the U of U Union Programming Council , Cricket Wireless, and all the Tour partners for making it happen! It will be hard to top the level of talent that came to throw down in SLC!
With the third event of the Cricket Campus Rail Jam Tour wrapped up, the Galvanic Design crew is stoked to head to the front range of Colorado for the next event at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Thursday, March 12th! Did we mention a $3000 cash purse??? Be sure to check the website at www.campusrailjamtour.com for more info!
