The Red Bull "Hammers Vs. Bangers" Best Trick contest was held as part of the Skate Plaza's grand opening ceremonies last Saturday. After a mild rain delay, Chris Cole won the individual Small, Medium and Large sessions, and as a result took the overall win and $32,000 in prize money. To round out the top five: Terrell Robinson took second, Tommy Gunz took third, Darrell Stanton took fourth, and Caine Gayle took fifth.
"Hammers Vs. Bangers" was a re-invention of the best trick contest---staged on not one but three different sections of Skate Plaza terrain, "Hammers Vs. Bangers" provided an outlet for technical, stair and big rail skaters to shine. Among the entrants: Darrell Stanton, Lindsey Robertson, Josh Kalis, Chris Cole, Paul Rodrguez, Eric Koston, Tommy Gunz, Terrell Robinson, Grant Taylor, and Caine Gayle.
The Skate Plaza's grand opening ceremonies took place mid-morning, and after a mild rain delay, the contest started around 1 p.m. with the Medium session, which took place on the seven-stair Workshop rail, so named because of the Alien Workshop logo embedded in the ground at the landing.
The first session lasted roughly 20 minutes as everyone served up their best tricks. Highlights: Darrell clicked into backside barley grinds, Tommy Gunz pulled a feeble to backside-180 out, and Chris Cole sessioned the seven-stair like a flat-bar---among other tricks, he unleashed a switch frontside 360 ollie down the stairs and an ollie over to switch crooks.
From the Medium session, "Hammers Vs. Bangers" moved to the Small session, which took place on the two ledges in back of the Skate Plaza. The runway to the ledges got a bit crowded, but Koston buttered a flip front crooks. Kalis whipped a backside 360 to nosebluntslide and Cole stuck a front blunt to flip out to forward (ouch) and a frontside pop shove-it to backside nosegrind. Ruben Garcia rocketed into high-speed nollie nose-bluntslides.
When the Small session ended, the "Hammers Vs. Bangers" grand finale took place on the DC 12, so-called because of the DC logo in the ground at the bottom of the stairs. It was the Big session. Darrell cracked a giant nollie down the set, and followed it up with a floating nollie cab. Tommy Gunz dealt out a back lip first try, took it to fakie a few tries later, and then handed out a nosebluntslide.
Cole stepped to the Big session with something to prove. He frontside 5-0'd the rail, then frontside tailslid it. He uncorked a switch frontside flip and followed it with a 360 flip.
"When are you going to finish?" someone yelled from the crowd. "When Dyrdek says the contest is over!" said Chris.
The skaters were exhausted, and the number of attempts made down the stairs dwindled, so Dyrdek finally called time, and "Hammers Vs. Bangers" was over. The Skate Plaza was cleared of spectators as Dyrdek and fellow judges Tony Heitz and Turbo Tony calculated the final results.
After a few minutes, Dyrdek got on the mic and announced the winners. He also handed out special trophies that Red Bull had created for the event---hammers. With that, the contest came to close and the Skate Plaza was officially opened to the public. "The Skate Plaza was designed to bring out the best in skaters," said Dyrdek, "and these guys showed that today."
"Even without the contest," said Chris Cole, "I would have come to skate the Plaza---it is the perfect street spot."
