PierFest 2006 went down April 8-9, Saturday and Sunday proving once again to be an incredible action packed weekend with riders from all over the southeast coming out to showcase their skills, and session the rail jam! The course offered up two separate fun boxes, flat bars, and kinked rails, all setup within 4 pools total! The Grinch Winch took things to another level, running constantly for three days, and pulling riders through some insane lines, like Tim Braggs trash can on-top of the kinked rail and Vinny Knapps all original line through the grass to launch ramp over the start box! There were some sweet pool transfers, and more! Liquid Force was out in full force with top riders such as Shawn Watson, Tino Santori and Gregg Necrason making the course look easy, like Tinos huge ollie over the 22-foot pool gap, and Shawn’s pool transfer to rail showing the riders how things get done!
The weekend at the St Petersburg Pier, was full of incredible talent of all types from the 688 Skatepark street course, Freestyle Moto-X guys going huge, battle of the bands, the 97X stage with national live acts, and the Bliss Sports Winch Driven Rail Jam in the Grass!
Saturday offered up a contest format that consisted of wakeboards, and wakeskates, with an open format each rider was allowed three passes and the top run was taken for final podium placement. The Grinch Winch pulled riders all day long, showing some new and innovative lines and tricks, from first time on the winch guys to top level pros!
Sunday was the NO FEAR sick trick contest with 1500 dollars on the line, this contest took on a whole new format with an open jam session for all wakeboards, and wakeskates alike all throwin it down with hopes of taking home lots of cash! The crowd was involved from the start, when a rider had a sick run, the crowd was the judge and the bank, when riders stuck something sick, other riders and the crowd determined the cash payout! The best overall trick of the day was to take home 500 dollars and that proved to be an interesting turn out with the top three riders all splitting the money and Bliss Sports adding a little more so the top three all went home with cash in their pockets!
Last year No Fear and Bliss Sports hosted the $5000 Sick Trick Double-Up Contest with top riders like Phil Soven, Rusty Malinoski, and Sean O’Brien competing for the cash behind the Malibu VLX all in the 3 foot swells making for a challenging run, pushing riders to throw their most explosive tricks! Check out blisssports.com for event photos, results, videos, and more!
SATURDAYS RESULTS:
Wakeboard:
1. Tim Bragg
2. Vinny Knapp ;
3. Ryan Ebbers
Wakeskate:
1. Kyle Walton
2. John Ruark
3. Ben Kaiser
SUNDAYS RESULTS:
NO FEAR SICK TRICK $1500
Tim Bragg, Kyle Walton, Vinny Knapp – 3-WAY TIE