Backyard Bang Denver

A couple days ago was the Backyard Bang in Denver, and I was deemed worthy to ride in it... sweet. I registered, got my free bottle opener and chapstick, was shown the athlete lounge and totally missed everything that a volunteer explained to me. Even after I told her I was deaf, she still kept looking away while talking. Oh well. My friend explained to me later what she said, including some important shit I needed to know, like a meeting at 11:30am.

Backyard Bang at 12th and Lincoln
image from emagenetwork.com

We went to the athlete meeting, I have no idea what they said, I just sat there completely oblivious and then when it was over, we were sent to practice before the jam began. Oh my god. The drop in was a little much, people only needed to come down halfway for the rail and box on the sides while you needed to drop in from the very top for the middle box. And... the landings... owwww!!! Super flat, people were getting hurt during practice. A girl hit her knees, another girl put her hand out because she was falling due to the flat landing throwing people back and sprained her arm, and my ankles absorbed the shock of the flatness... so we stopped practice a bit early and just decided to wait for the competition to start. It also didn't help that the rails would shoot you really fast to the flatness. Blah.

Finally, practice was over and the snow was pretty much gone from the drop in... sweet haha. Emily Blewitt was in heat 1, so I got to hang back and watch her obliterate the rails.

Emily killing it
pic taken by Justin @ comclovin.com

She did VERY well, landed damn near everything and did a very smooth 180 on the gap-box. She was basically very clean and smooth, and I thought she would advance to the finals for sure.

Heat 2 started, that was me!! I was super super nervous, I don't know why... but I felt like I did pretty good, except for my last drop in... hahahaha... I went to do a frontboard and slipped out, started falling face down. Instinctively, I put my arms in front of my face and ended up punching myself in my forehead above my eye.. that didn't feel too good. I got up, checked my nose to make sure it wasn't bleeding, sat down for a couple minutes then went up again.

Me showing some 720 Boardshop love on my helmet, I think this was after I punched myself?
Pic taken by Justin @ comclovin.com

View from the top. Boardsliding down to flat landing of death!
pic taken by Chris @ snowboarderguide.com

My heat was over, and I got to sit with Emily and hang out while heat 3 went down. The audience was kept entertained in between with product tosses, and I caught some Bonfire snowboard pants... sweet!!

Then they started announcing who got to go to the finals... that was when we all agreed that judging was WACK! I didn't pay too much attention to the men, but I watched the girls... there was one girl who 50-50'd the whole time, never hit the rail, fell all over the place... she advanced to the finals, and not Emily or any of the other girls who also did really well. I thought that Emily should had gone to finals, she did good. Even while the finals went down, everyone kept looking around like "WTF" when that one girl kept falling throughout the finals... lol... oh well...

It was pretty fun, I'm very glad I got to participate in it and went home with some goodies. I also met some rad girls like Gabi Viteri, ate some free food, drank a bunch of Red Bull, and my head was throbbing throughout the night! We ended up going home at 6pm.... I know, we're lame! We were tired!