Another academy ticked off the list for 23. Mount Hawke went OFF with a bunch of riders showing up on the day of the coronation. The amateur competition has never been so close to pro.
The day's forecast was the classic, Under 13's, Overs and a Best Trick comp on the biggest box we could find at Mount Hawke.
Unders kicked off at around 2:30PM after the later start, 3 heats of riders dropped in for 5 minutes at a time in their groups while the Dogg Team riders cast their judging eye over the park. It was incredibly hard to pick the top riders out of the sea of ramps and rails but our 5 finalists were chosen and got ready for their final 45 second runs.
While at this point we couldn't believe that we were watching un-sponsored riders on the park, the scores on the boards showed one rider shining amongst the rest.
Ruan Meloy (@ruan_m_meloy) took the first place on the podium with Bobby Dennis (@crazydog1264) and Stanley Harvey (@stanley_turbo_harvey) hot on his heels in second and third.
Then onto the overs - This is when the comp really started heating up. Once again, we could not believe that these guys were amateurs and hadn't yet been picked up by any brands.
The Overs had no heats and it was straight into their 1 minute runs - extended over the original 45 seconds to aid in park use.
One after another the riders took the park, usually starting with the boxes at the back of the park to get the heavy hitting tricks in at the start of their run. Then heading over to the street section to hit the banks and rails.
Liam Whiteman made the crowd roar during his run by stomping a HUGE double flair on the famous Mount Hawke quarter pipe. It was really a site to see, everyone was loving it.
With the runs being way too close in points between the top three (it could have gone anyway) - we had to take influence from the riders Best Trick's on the box to help us decide. This is where Billy Thorpe really took the stage. Landing 2 out of the 3 best tricks gave him a large advantage and actually put him at the top spot and winning his place on the Dogg Academy team!
The final standings for the day was as follows:
Unders:
1st - Ruan Meloy (@ruan_m_meloy)
2nd - Bobby Dennis (@crazydog1264)
3rd - Stanley Harvey (@stanley_turbo_harvey)
Overs:
1st - Billy Thorpe (@billythorpe)
2nd - Liam Whiteman (@liamwhiteman1)
3rd - Joseph Taylor (@j0e13.__)
Best Trick:
Billy Thorpe
Thank you to everyone that came and took part in the event, we hope you had a very excellent day.
A huge thankyou to our sponsors of the day JP Scooters and Lucky Scooters and also a massive thank you to Mount Hawke Skatepark for being amazing hosts through out the day.
For the next Academy event we're hitting the sky's and flying over to NORTHERN IRELAND to take on Ramp Yard Skatepark - see you there!