Words by Jono Coote

Photos by Leo Sharp

Saturday the 1st August saw us heading down into the depths of Devon in the name of Prime Indoor Skatepark‘s Mini King miniramp jam, which saw skaters from all over appearing to christen their new ramp by going absolutely fucking ham. Even a warm, sunny day outside couldn’t keep people away from the sweaty confines of the ramp, with lines being found on every corner, sub box and wall available. At a glance the ramp looked small but turned out to be whippy enough for locking in smiths (an often overlooked priority) and, with sub boxes, hips into a jump ramp area behind one of the platforms and a solid extra foot on the extension, people got the chance to get creative.

With a solid snaking session starting things off it was clear that warming up wasn’t an option for many – it was straight in with grinds the full length of the coping, waist high airs on the extension and stalls on the sub box. Greg Nowik and Sam Pulley obviously know their way around a miniramp and this one was no problem for them, while Jed Cullen was eyeing up increasingly gnarly areas of the platform to aim for. Matt Beer bought the ‘relative unknown’ hype with a solid style and combination of footplants with technical lip-trickery and airs, definitely one to watch out for.

The horde who kicked things off were narrowed down to 15, with a selection of heats narrowing things down to 8. More importantly, at around this time my hangover faded enough to start drinking the beer which was on offer. The fact that people were still skating as hard as they were by this time is a definite testament to stamina, a combination of my incumbent dehydration from the previous nights fun and the heat of the ramp meant that my legs were gone to jelly within a couple of hours. Nowik, Pulley and Beer were clearly on one, but Marc Churchill‘s powerhouse grinds that made the fairly lengthy ramp look too short and Jed Cullen’s blunt fakie on the 5 foot high poster frame were high points of the session. The beers were flowing as things came to a close, but unfortunately the timing of my train meant I had to miss both the best trick comp and the serious boozing which lay ahead. Even without the closure which would finish this article perfectly it was still a shining example of how a skate comp should undoubtedly be. Cheers to Prime Skatepark for making it happen, Gumball 3000 for their financial support, everyone who showed up and killed it, and the girl on the train home who didn’t mind bizarre conversation switches between James Joyce, Nicolas Cage, Ian Curtis and Frankenhooker…

Results:

1st – Sam Pulley

2nd – Greg Nowik

3rd – Matt Beer