DuFFS CONCRETE CARNAGE PT.1
MEANWHILE 05 | 09 | 04 REPORT.

The final part of the DuFFS concrete carnage series took place at meanwhile gardens on September 5th and was a great way to end the first real concrete series in the UK that focused on where skateboarding started in this country "Concrete parks". The idea was to show where skating began and celebrate the fact we still have some of these old parks in use and in working order.

The emphasis was on fun and real skateboarding and that is exactly what you got. In the under 16’s some of the riders were so small they made the 14 yr olds look old! Little 7-year-old Alex from Milton Keynes made it through to the final with kickflips, shove it rocks and grinds, not bad when the board comes up to your face! Essex ripper Gus also made it through with some nice line over the hip and drop ins on the 4ft of vert tomb. In the end the top 3 were, Finn in 3rd with consistent lines round the whole park, with Admah in 2nd with rad Ollie krooks, BS 1ft ollies over the main hip and Kevin “the plasterer” in 1st! Obviously being under 16 Kev is not a Plasterer but he sure looks like one!

In the over 16’s the competition was tough and the heats were pretty fierce but the final was real carnage, an 8 man jam for 10 minutes went off, with collisions, harsh slams and people flying everywhere. It was amazing to watch with so many things going down all over the park it was hard to know where to look. The 3 main contenders from the start were Tom Crowe, DuFFS rider Mattias Nylen and Local ruler Stevie Thompson. Stevie was fresh off the back of his win at the back to the park 5 event and has some crazy lines at the park. Crowe is a masochist and I am sure he enjoys the pain as much as the skating!

He was killing it with some huge transfers and massive airwalk Fakies! Mattias threw down Fs grinds on the vert tomb, BS 360s over the hip, alley oops, Fs blunts on the extension fs grind 270 in over the death bar and managed to have 2 head on collisions in the 10 min final! Stevie was flying with beanplants off the tomb into the lower section, loads of crazy shit on the bar, fs rocks on the vert tomb, then he started to try a crazy gap that he didn’t take down in the final but tried again in the best trick. In the end Crowe got 3rd, Stevie was edged into 2nd by Mattias who took a deserved 1st place!

The best trick was gnarly with Crowe on a death wish again trying to Ollie out of the bowl over the platform, the stairs and onto the path! The gap is at least 14 ft with a drop of about 10ft! Tom came close on the 2nd try and it looked like it might go down, the next try he was on all the way and landed only to stop dead and plough himself into the concrete! Stevie was on his own mission on the other side of the park trying to finish what he had started in the final, he was trying to Ollie from the main hip platform up onto the platform of the vert tombstone and Indy grab back into the bottom section of the park. The gap is about 7ft and the Ollie is at least 2ft up plus once you get up there you have about a second to get ready to come off the end of the tomb into the bowl! Stevie came really close and landed on one but slid out, and then somehow he managed to clothesline himself on the edge of the box! It was so gnarly it looked like he would be heading straight to hospital but unbelievably he managed to get only a huge graze right across his chest for his troubles.

In the end the money was split between Tom and Stevie for there efforts! Over all the comp went off and the jam format definitely brought out the best in the skaters and the final was some of the best skating I have ever seen at the park!

Anyway the Concrete Carnage series is over and worked out pretty good! Thanks to all of the sponsors DuFFS, Eastpak, OG Distribution, Potato wheels, Sinckers and thanks to Crossfire and to everyone who came to any of the events. Watch out for a documentary about the series on the extreme channel later this year!