Rococo Finals

by Sim Bradley
09 / 08 / 2008

All good things must come to an end, and today marked the finals of this year’s Vans Rococo Rail Tour. The day started out with a lot of sore heads and unwillingness to get out of bed, something that wasn’t helped by the continuous rain that had been going all night. I arrived at the backstage car park at midday and spent 10 minutes sliding around the muddy field and down a hill trying to park my car knowing that trying to get out later on would be a nightmare. After eventually parking, it was over to the Vans tent to shelter from the rain and watch as literally tens of people came through the gate onto the festival site. The first band onstage came out and shouted ‘Hello Newquay’ to the four onlookers of which one lonesome guy screamed back. It wasn’t a promising outlook for the day.

A couple of hours later and the crowds had finally arrived but the site had turned into a mess, the field’s drainage was non-existent so there was a 3-inch layer of brown water on top of the mud. Eventually the rain seized at around 3pm and Trigger, Matty C and Terry went out for the wakeskate best trick jam. We made it about 4 minutes in before the rain came back stronger than ever and bought his friend the wind along, causing carnage with boards and riders blowing all over the place. Eventually Terry Hannam won, but not with the best trick of that day, which was a simple boardslide as conditions made it nearly impossible to get to the end of the start pool, let alone the rail. We awarded him the prize for yesterdays clean 270 shuv off in the practice session, leaving him as tour champion and walking away with a pimping old-school bike courtesy of Vans.

In the wakeboarding conditions were the same, and it was one of the scariest contests I’ve ever seen. First of all Moyle did a gap 3 on the a-frame, but got blown to the side, slamming on the edge of the rail and breaking his board. Then Tom Watson also got blown off but into the flat bar, just managing to get his hand in front of his face, but catching one hell of a back edge after which pretty much knocked him out with a mild concussion. The mood wasn’t good while the medics tended to Tom, and when we knew he was ok Matt Crowhurst went for his go, landed funny and shot out the side of the landing pool. He was a little stunned but fine; I think myself Tim and Mark Durston where more scared.

The final came down to what we all expected, Matty C against LDB. An injured Lee Debuse set the first trick and Matt matched it, then this pattern went of for a while. It eventually came down to a gap backside 450 in gnarly winds to decide a winner, and Stop 3 went to Matt. In the overall standings Matt and Lee drew even, splitting the £1000 title prize. It wasn’t the best rail comp we’ve ever seen, but in those conditions the fact that everyone walked away was a blessing. There will be more on the Rococo tour in a future of Alliance.