BURTON OPEN HALFPIPE FINAL

8/13 - The 4th and final day of the NZ Burton Open proved time to shine for the big boys of pipe riding. The day saw the almighty skies clear, the wind simmer down and the sun come out to warm up everyon's day. With mad chaos on the road first thing in the morning with some crazy driving stunts by some average punters with a few crashes and slips and some crews were held up for a wee bit. Up the hill and down to business.

Once again Ruben and the crew had been charging up a storm getting the pipe shaped, banners up, sounds cranking and getting my free breakfast ready!! I am sure all the riders were taking full advantage of the freebies for the last day and I sure wasn't holding back. The pipe was set and practise was on. The best riders from the previous days qualifers had come through along with the invited pros like Keir Dillion, Ross Powers, Mason Auire, Crispin Lipscomb and Kiwi boys Mitchy Brizzown, RMBizzle, Will and Tim Jackways and Jah Harris!!

The females were up and Kendal Brown got stuff dialed with a solid run and made the cut to the FINALS FINALS. Julian Bray was unfortunately not able to stomp the dream run to get through to the finals. The level of the females was super high with 5's and 7's standard and a couple of 900 in the mix. This was definately the highest level of pipe riding NZ has EVER seen for ANY halfpipe comp.

The finals cranked along with the support and cheers coming from all sides as the ladies went on a demolition derby of the pipe. Kiwi girl Kendal Brown sketched out on a landing and in a pipe where speed was key, sketching was definately not a good thing. The ladies blasted through finishing off with some dope back to back 5's and all around smoothness. The men were up.

The line up was something out of a playstation game with THE worlds heavy hitters all on point to try and take the cash. Usually in a NZ pipe comp the dude who goes back to back 7's usually wins, well not here. EVERY rider was putting together combos down the pipe. Back to back everythgings, switch, normal, alley oop, handplants, jibs and huge backside 1st hits were just everywhere. This is pretty much what was going down:

Keir Dillion: BIGGEST 1st hit MCTwist's
Marcus Wherle: Bone master and sick alleyoop tweaks Elijay Teter: back to abck 7's
Tim Jackways: Smooth operator and steez master
Luke Mitrani: Sickest font 900 tails and abck to back 7's
Stefan Karlsson: Big backside airs and MASSIVE air to fakie tweak combo into cab cork 7
Jah Harris: Dope air to fakies into haakon
Ross "The Boss" Powers: Pretty much his olympic run with abckside air, front 9, mctwist and a front 10
Mitchell Brown: Front cork 7 into cab cork 7 into fornt 900 to backside air to alleyoop chuck
Danny Davis: Biggest Back rodeo first hit and all sorts of spin trickery
Crispin Lipscomb: Back to back 7's and 9's
Jonathan Cheever: As always...HUGE!!!!!
Tom Wilmott: Cab 270 into cab 7
Louie Vito: Straight outta NY with the sickest style of teh day hands down. Front 900 to abck 7 to switch back 5, cab 7 and everything in between
RMB: Super steez with 5'f 7's and the usual steez from the Bizzle

FINAL RESULTS

Women:
1. Hannah Teter
2. Ellery Hollingsworth
3. Tricia Byrnes
4. Yayoi Tamura
5. Elena Hight
6. Kendall Brown

Men:
1. Ross Powers
2. Crispin Lipscomb
3. Keir Dillon
4. Louie Vito
5. Danny Davis
6. Stefan Karlsson

CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE CONTEST COVERAGE