On Saturday, May 14th, Pro-Tec put up $85,000 for the first ever Combi Bowl Competition at the Vans Skatepark in Orange, CA. The list of riders attending was almost inconceivable to me. The usual pool pros were invited, Benji Galloway, Omar Hassan, Brian Patch, Jimmy the Greek plus others. Then there were all the vert riders that came out to compete, Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist, Rune Glifberg, Lincoln Ueda, Christiano Mateus and a list of others. This was probably the greatest contest I have ever witnessed.The level of skating was off the charts and to see the lines everyone was taking made me want to skate the pool more than the once a week I do already.

The day started off with the Industry Finals where one full-time employee from a few media outlets got to go head to head for bragging rights. Then the women took the stage to kill the pool. I have seen the level of women skating get better and better over the past few years, but it was good to see that they had a platform like this contest to show their skills to the masses. The Masters comp followed the ladies and was definitely an awesome thing. Chris Miller was the human hightlight. Also, Ben Schroeder's eggplants were beautiful things. When the pros came out to skate, you could feel the excitement in the air. There hasn't been a pool competition of this magnitude since the old concrete park days and everyone was in anticipation of the action. Needless to say, the pros didn't disappoint. So. check out some of the ripping that went on that day. Hopefully, they do it again next year.

Note: these photos were taken during Friday practice and Saturday's competition.

Go to the photos >

RESULTS

Industry
1st Scott Taylor
2nd Dave Swift
3rd Buddy Carr
4th Jim Murphy
5th Roger Harrell

Masters
1st Chris Miller
2nd Jeff Grosso
3rd Lance Mountain
4th Steve Alba
5th Pat Ngoho
6th Ben Schroeder
7th Tony Magnusson
8th Kevin Staab
9th Eddie Reategui
10th Mike Smith

Pro
1st Rune Glifberg
2nd Omar Hassan
3rd Brian Patch
4th Benji Galloway
5th Bucky Lasek
6th Jimmy "the Greek" Marcus
7th Lincoln Ueda
8th Bruno Passos
9th Tony Trujillo
10th Jake Piasecki