West Palm Review

(just experimenting with pictures and this is the only one i have from the meet)



What's up people...

So i just got back from west palm and after a serious nap, decided I'd post a quick review.

INDOOR

The indoor portion of the meet was really awkward for me. Since the only time most people race on concrete is this meet it makes the races a lot more even. The floor actually held a lot better than last year, and after a little adjustment time it was a lot better. We debut Answer's new indoor wheels at this meet. GREAT SUCCESS! Not only do the wheels look awesome, they definitely held better than any other wheel on the track. And even though it was the first time I skated on 100mm wheels(110's will be ready next month) in like a year and a half i felt really comfortable on them. It was great to see Stephen Carter in form that i haven't seen for a while. He won the 500m pretty impressively. And Harry Vogel and Jarret Paul also looked really good working on their comebacks(more to come on harry in a minute). The Pro girls all really looked strong. No one race really pops to my head as being super, but there was a lot of good racing. Jonathan Blair and Sophi Webb(sorry if i misspelled) both looked like a safe bet if your looking for some up and comers. A lot of hard falls too(including me... TWICE), so i hope everyone who went down ended up alright. OOO yeah.. fall of the meet for sure goes to my man Sammie Johnson who got hockey checked into the wall on a relay tag. By the way that was in the masters 3 person i believe.. Can anyone tell me if there were any placements in that race? B/c between us, every team should have been disqualified. And i think the race ended with Ed saying over the mic, "ok you guys are done". HAHA who needs a checkered flag anyway. Anyway overall good meet indoor. O yeah i really almost forgot.. I won the meet. That usually contributes to me saying weather the meet was good or not.



OUTDOOR-The return of American aggression

As always the outdoor part of the competition took place at beautiful Brian Piccolo Park. And before I start.. What is up with the track part of this meet. I think it's cursed. Every year it drops like 40 degrees on the day we skate track. Look here mother nature.. I came to Florida b/c it's warm, not to be walking around freezing. All in all the track part was pretty good. A few of the Colombians were there, they all skated pretty strong. Really want to give credit to my man Daniel who i just met this weekend. Any of you who don't know who that is was the young Colombian skating for tru-rev. The kid just attacked non stop and he's only 15. Speaking of young Kevin Quant looked really strong also. Will Bowen skated strong returning from his serious knee injuries. The powerslide girls looked really good, and they seemed to be working well together. OO yeah and Joey was busy being Joey out there. Making it look pretty easy. I got 2nd though and with the little outdoor I've been doing i was pretty happy with that.

To me the biggest story of the outdoor part had nothing to do with the speed. A lot of people in the US aren't accustomed to the rough style of racing that usually goes on outdoor. I'm not really a big fan of the tough fighting style of racing. But it's the way it is. So if you saw a lot of grabbing and pulling outside, just realize that was nothing compared to the way international races are run. However in the last few yrs the US team has been a little less aggressive than a lot of other teams. And i think it has cost us a lot of races. I think with the return of Harry Vogel to the scene things might just get a little more rough. A lot of people probably aren't going to like it, but I think it's gonna help in the long run. Harry raced in the old days with Chad, Keith, Derrick, etc.. And he defiantly races at a rougher style then we're used to. He absolutely refuses to be bullied on the track. In fact I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he may be the bully on the track. He got grabbed one time on the road, and i think the guy who grabbed him came away with a bloody lip. I'm glad Harry's on my team, and super pumped he's skating strong. I hope we don't all start beating each other up, but i do hope we can carry this style over to Worlds.

Ok quick good bad and ugly.........


GOOD---If you like racing skating this meet is for you. Indoor, Track, Road, and a marathon. Doesn't get much better than that. You get to see top level competition early in the year and you can quickly figure out if your on schedule... or if it's time to step it up a little bit. Great prize money for the pros, and they give away wheels, bearings and all sorts of stuff to the age divisions.... And our new uniforms are sick.

BAD-- Indoor, track, road and a marathon.... that's a lot of skating in 3 days. Especially early in the season where most people outside of Florida are doing little to no outdoor. I kinda wish this meet could be pushed back a few months so everyone could go in at top form. I think it would be a great tune-up for outdoor nationals(contradiction at it's best)

UGLY--Lots of falls.. The track is cursed with bad weather. I think we ran the slowest marathon ever(except Julian and Joey). Plus a lot of people at the meet didn't skate the marathon.

Alright.. good meet had lots of fun... Thanks a lot to Ed for putting on a great meet. Hope to see everyone in Roanoke.