Place: Bristol, Pennsylvania.
Organisation: AFA, Bob Morales.
2. The qualifying rounds of each class (except the Pros) gave each rider three 30-second runs in which to impress the judges. Five riders from each class made the out 10 the finals.
3. The 13&Under Expert class had a mad battle for first between Ohio's Matt Smith and New Jersey's Alfred Teo. Both riders kicked out difficult trick lists, but Matt had more overall redness to snag the win.
4. North and South went to war in the 14-15 Expert class, and Pennsylvania local Jesse Kramer waved the flag of victory over Georgia's Jamie West when the fight was over. New Yorker Carl ArgiIa was actually favored to win the class, but all he could muster was a fourth behind Brian Miller out of Maryland.
5. The 16-17 Expert division was considered the most controversial of the day by most folks. The problem unfolded over Ohio's second-place finisher Danny Meng and New Jersey's winner Ross Smith. Danny pulled death trucks, macaronis, rolling peg aids and a rollback backward whiplash to a forward rope-a-roni, but wasn't able to beat Ross who did a death truck to dump truck combo amongst a load of other rolling tricks. In the end Ross touched a lot more than Danny, so when the results were announced people cringed hard.
6. Domination, on the other hand, was Perry Mervar's story in the 16 & Over Expert class. The Indiana resident blasted his wild style past Missouri's Jim Johnson and lock the class with an impressive margin, Perry's own creation called "The Perry Doom" was the crowd (and judge) favorite. It's a move where he jumps up into a rubber ride from his rear pegs. Sick!
7. The Masters class is a relatively new concept. It's an Open class where Expert riders are allowed to compete against each other regardless of their age. Mark that heavy win for Massachusetts' Tommy Simpson.
8. Though small in size, the Pro class wielded its usual amount of intensity. Both Bill Neuman and Kevin Jones made their Pro debuts with valid attempts to beat veteran hard-core Dennis McCoy. But even though they both spilled leads of originality onto the contest floor, they didn't measure up to the speedy. The two rookies did, however, show off the raddest trick of the weekend -the hitchhiker. Jones took it one step further by rolling its reverse version called the backpacker. That's Kev, he's always innovating.
9. Realize that the Novice and Intermediate riders are rad these days. Most have the talent lobe Experts- they just seem to be holding back in comps to gain experience. So be warned, you Experts; there are a ton of hot stylers on your trail.
Perry Mervar
Masters 1.Tommy Simpson 2.Jay Jones 3.Pete Kearney 4.Danny Regenye 5.Josh Marsele
18&over Expert 1.Perry Mervar 2.Jim Johnson 3.James McGraff 4.Sean Leslie 5.Mark Eaton
16-17 Expert 1.Ross Smith 2.Danny Meng 3.Craig LePage 4.Tommy Simpson 5.Josh Marsele
14-15 Expert 1.Jesse Kramer 2.Jamie West 3.Brian Miller 4.Carl Argila 5.Jason Hughes
13&under Expert 1.Matt Smith 2.Alfred Teo 3.Ricky Newberry
