SNO!zone - Castleford

This time held in the beautiful historic northern city of York.  Bypassing the crowds flocking to the traditional York races, our runners and riders lined up at the gate, ready to be let loose on the jib setup that occupied St. Sampsons Square, slap bang in the centre of the city.
With 25 tonnes of the real stuff being brought over from SNO!zone Castleford early on Saturday, a dedicated park team had been hard at it all morning ensuring the course was ready to ride, with the going being assessed as 'good to soft'.  Riders had an option of one of two hits, the famous CASvegas slide box where all tricks are honed, or the trickier 7m single bar down rail where the super tech stuff was to be thrown down later.

In the stables were some of the UK's finest indoor and dryslope thoroughbreds, ranging from the experienced Rick Barrow and Halifax's Wayne Taylor, right through to youngsters like Matt Macwerter, Tyler Harding and Jamie Nicholls.  Midday rolled around real quick, and with a couple of last minute adjustments to the setup, the riders were let loose with a couple of warm up sessions. Beginning to show the eager crowd what was possible on snowboards and skis, accompanied by the sweet sounds of DJ’s Mossadon and Ezy Ryder in the Red Bull army truck sound system. 

With a relaxed atmosphere in place, the riders egged each other on as the tricks began to get bigger and techer by the minute. Cas regular Andy Nudds was first to throw down in style, with a 270 on switch up on the down rail, while Jamie Nicholls kept the crowd pumped with a series of nollie frontflips off the side of the set-up. The slide box was also taking a hammering from the skiing fraternity, with all manner of spin combinations and pretzels being showcased from the likes of Andy Collins and Kerry Daines. The crowd showed their appreciation for the skills on display with some ridiculously loud cheering, which got even louder in a bid to bag themselves some sweet freebies.

After showing the population of York what could be done on their wooden steeds, it was time to get serious, the SNO!zone/STANDINGsideways Team Jib Battle got underway for the last session. After randomly drawing four teams, the riders donned their team colours and headed to the top for a semi final match up to determine the two finalists.  With far too much tech stuff being put down for this reporter to take in, the semi’s passed in a blur of 270's, switch ups and tail presses! Making it to the final were the Green machines of Stu Edwards, Rick Barrow, Wayne Taylor, Little T and Si Foster, who were to take on the standout team from the semi’s, the Limes! Headed up by Jon Russell, and ably assisted by little Will Smith, Matt Higson, Jamie Nicholls, Matt Macwerter and Kerry Daines. The Limes put on a real show for the crowd, dropping one after the other consistently for at least 30 minutes solid!  As the efforts of the day began to take their toll on most, the spills came thick and fast with Jon Russell pushing particularly hard to land hard way back 1's and 270's on.

The Green team responded with their own massive effort to outdo the Limes, Stu Edwards and Little T did their best to score highly with the judges, with Little T scoring points in the fashion and style stakes and 'Steady Eddy' nailing a series of smooth looking rotations onto both the down rail and box.  And so it was left to the judges to call the winner, a difficult task with such a high level of riding throughout the day.  When the announcement came it was the Lime team that took top honours, and a £150 cash prize to share between them. For the STANDINGsideways individual awards, trick of the day went to Andy Nudds for his earlier 270 on, switch up on the down rail, while Jamie Nicholls bagged standout rider of the day for his crowd pleasing nollie frontflips onto the slide box. Not to be outdone by his Halifax companion, Wayne Taylor picked up the award for slam of the day, for his heroic 'no foot drop in to slam off the side of the box'!!

Massive thanks go to York City Council for helping to stage this epic event.