Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meornek

That photo guy's shot is going to turn out way better than mine of Peter Ramondetta frontside flipping the Alcohol's Awesome barrier. See the two A's? Maybe that's a sign for me to get on the wagon with Braydon. Nah

Who dat? FSNG. If we were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn at the top of this photo, I'd probably be full wastoid from a crazy lobby party that's probably going on right now

As Clyde mentioned on the mic, Robert Lopez-Mont has footage in his new video, Minority Report. This is a fakie flip. Just seeing Robert makes me want to go back to Puerto Rico

Vince Del Valle's got it in the streets and the bowls - this is a nollie feeble grind

Danny Cerezini nollie backside flipped the 11 stair. I have way too many photos on this set. Got lazy and sat in one spot too long

Tony Cervantes airwalked it

Greg Lutzka frontside half cabbed it. Man purse guy got a way sicker photo than I did for sure

You could hear the catch on Collin Hale's big ass switch flip

While we were walking out of the event, I heard some kid's free stuff pitch to Bryan Herman. It was, "Bryan, got anything you don't want?" Good one. This is a hard flip

Clyde Singleton entertained on the mic while these butch ass roller girls came out during "half time"

The roller amazon girls then beat each other up with giant Q-Tips

Back to the skateboarding - Nyjah Huston did a noseblunt slide on the rail

...and here's a photo of the white pants filmer. Kind of like an underage version of Filmer Sara

Andrew Reynolds frontside flipped the double set. Clyde went on for a bit about the girl in the white pants filming...

At every contest, you're always going to have the contest crab walk landings. Andrew Reynolds has the breakdance move at the end of this backside heelflip

Most men above 30 are wearing leopard print pads, shorts above the knee, and slashing some pool coping, their wheels leaving the ground only when they quit skating. Ronnie Creager is still switch hard flipping 11

Darrell Stanton is doing this switch backside not in a pair of DC's

Another crabwalk contest landing breakdancer. Ryan Sheckler could have made this cab flip down the 11 perfect if there was more time

Vanessa Torres - thanks for the after Contest drinks. How come I didn't get a head rub? She mentioned her girl has a nice rack. Can't wait to meet her and check them out for myself

Vanessa was deep into the sauce by this point. Right after this, the quote that came out was, "It's all about the vaginas"

Darrell Stanton's got a Lakai karate kick. Does he ride for them now?

The format for GvR is damn confusing. Well, it’s not so much confusing as it is technical and complicated. So here’s the deal: Each Team Captain is permitted to pick five skaters that go directly into the Finals. The Skateboard Mag’s Dave Swift was the Goofy Team Captain and Mark Whitely from SLAP represented the Regular Team. Here’s who picked who:

Goofy skaters that went straight to the Finals:

• Nyjah Huston
• Jereme Rogers
• Ronnie Creager
• Dylan Rieder
• Darrell Stanton

Regular skaters that went straight to the Finals:

• Andrew Reynolds
• Chris Cole
• Emmanuel Guzman – which was quite a surprise and a damn good call
• Ryan Sheckler
• Bryan Herman

The rest of the contestants had to fight it out in the Qualifiers on Saturday to get a spot in the Finals on Sunday, of which 10 from each Team were chosen.

Each of the 15 guys on each Team then took two runs, best run counts. Then it moved on to the “final” Finals, where each Team Captain hand picked five guys to skate in two, 10-minute Jams. Five minutes into each Jam they were permitted to put in “pinch hitters” and pull someone out if they were blowing it (cool concept). This is where it all went down. The Goofy Team went first and I thought that there was no way that the Regular guys were going to make a comeback, but they did. But when the Goofies did their second Jam I think that pretty much sealed the deal.

Here are the Results and the loot they made:

Goofy (winners)

1st – $10,000 – Jereme Rogers – he’s the Contest Champ. Jereme did the most tricks out of anyone…switch, regular, it didn’t matter…he was on fire and wanted to win that 10 G’s, and did. Down the 11-stair he did full cabs, switch 360 flips, and switch bs flips and on the flat bar he nailed switch fs salad 180 out and switch bs tails

2nd – $5000 – Nyjah Huston – in addition to coming up with a 2nd place finish, Nyjah also got MVP and came up on another $1500. He completely earned it though considering he had heelflip fs boards down the rail and switch bs heelflips down the 11-stair

3rd – $2500 – Rodolfo Ramos – it was nice to see Gugu up in the money and placing top three at an event…he definitely deserved it with his ass-hauling fs bluntslides on the picnic table and hardflip late bs 180 over the bank-to-barrier

4th – $2000 – Greg Lutzka – he had his usual tricks such as the switch fs 270 ollie to fs boardslide and fs 270 ollie to switch front blunt, but what impressed me most was the frontside half-cab kickflip over the barrier…that was gnar

5th – $1500 – Ronnie Creager – it’s seriously so rad to see a guy old as me (33) jumping down stairs the way Mr. Creager does. He switch flipped and hardflipped the 11-stair

In cool fashion, every finalist that was on the losing Team got $500, while everyone on the winning Team got $1000, regardless of placing...not so bad for a day’s work, I guess.

Regular (losers)

1st – Ryan Sheckler – winning for your team wasn’t good enough, huh? You had to go all out and be the MVP and get an additional $1500, right? Well, I would do the same if there were as many young ladies after me as are you, Ryan. But seriously, Sheckler’s skating did the talking ‘cause he nailed a bs HEELflip 360 body varial over the bank-to-big-ass barrier…that was insane

2nd – Chris Cole – have you ever seen someone do a kickflip backside 270 ollie to boardslide on a flatbar? Well, Chris did it, along with a seriously ridiculous amount of other tricks like an absolutely perfect fs 360 ollie over the barrier and a kickflip bs 360 ollie down the 11-stair. Just watching Cole messing around skating in between heats is the best…you never know what you’re going to see

3rd – Andrew Reynolds – The Boss was in full effect rocking Altamont gear and was completely focused. That’s how he was able to throw the ‘Reynolds-style’ into varial heel-flipping the barricade and cabbing the double set (huge)

4th – Alex Mizurov – this is the kid that won the Game of SKATE last month at ASR and came up on $10,000. He didn’t quite make that much this weekend, but we learned that he also rips more than flatground when he did a fs flip down the gigantor double-set

5th – Danny Fuenzalida – I think that I’m one of Danny’s biggest fans. He’s just one of those guys that are so damn easy-going and cool to get along with that it just makes you want to hang with him. His bs nollie heels over the barrier aren’t too shabby either

After the Contest I talked to one of the judges that explained to me that pretty much the only reason that Goofy won was because most of the Regular heavy hitters (Reynolds, Sheckler, Cole, and Herman) blew it in their runs, but ripped equally with the Goofs in the Jams. Had the Regs pulled their tricks in their runs they probably would have taken it. So that’s the reason that I lost my $100 bet, huh? Damn.

Thanks to everyone at etnies and everyone we shared a fun time with over the past few days. What a blast and really fun event that they do there. Good times once again…

Ryan