New Zealand Dirt Jump Open

Posted: Mar 10, 2009

Over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of March we saw the Transition Airfield at Woodhill Forest mountain bike park in Auckland New Zealand host the second annual New Zealand Dirt Jump Open.

Check out pics and details inside...

Saturday was the day for qualifying and warm up. This saw a lot of local riders turn up from all over the North Island and South Island to see if they could qualify, and line up against the big boys in the main event on Sunday. New Zealand big name riders like Kelly McGarry, Luke McCombie, Chris Beverland, Phil McClean, Lewis Jones and Karl Bensemen were also there for a shot at the top spot. We were privileged enough to have international riders Niki Leitner (Kona), Phil Sundbaum (Haro), Andrew Taylor (Marin) and Blake Robinson (Haro) attend our event also, as they were here in NZ filming in the South Island.

The weekend almost never went ahead due to heavy rainfall on the Friday night and Saturday morning. By 10 am Saturday the rain had stopped but the course was saturated. Course Designer, Tim Hunter and Woodhill Forest Park Manager, Hayden Shore jumped straight in as soon as the rain subsided and spear headed a huge course clean up. Within an hour and a half the course was ready to ride. All the boys were pumped.


So for the main event we already had eleven invited riders to compete, it was down to about 20 other entrants to battle out in a one hour jam session to try and impress the judges and try and grab one of nine spots to go through to Sunday's final. After a lot of deliberation between the judges, who I might add had a pretty tough job as the competition was pretty fierce, they broke the field down to just nine qualifiers plus the eleven invited riders for Sundays main event.


For the rest of the day all the boys just sessioned the course, which consisted of 5 doubles, 3 drops, 2 step down gaps, a wallride and a wooden kicker. Now you may think "all that in one run?", but that was split over three different optional lines.


Well the rain stayed away all day and the course was running primo by the time all the boys packed up on the Saturday arvo. Sunday looked like it was going to be an epic, epic day.


The sun was out in full force on Sunday and everyone was keen to get onto the course to warm up and dial in their runs. As all the boys were warming up, the crowd started to roll in, tents started going up, music started pumping and all the riders were getting amped for a good battle.


The first heat saw all 20 riders get two runs to try and score well in order to move onto the second round. All the boys rode superbly but only ten riders could go through. Big tricks were being thrown down and the boys were hungry for it. Competition was heating up.


As the competition went on we finally got down to four finalists. Kelly McGarry (NZ), Andrew Taylor (USA), Phil Sundbaum (USA) and Niki Leitner (AUSTRIA). These boys were pulling it all out of the bag. Phil Sunbaum was throwing big 360 combos, which included tricks like 360-xup-xdown-xup and Backflip-Tyre grabs. Niki Leitner was consistently putting his runs together on the top three jumps with big NoHander-Backflips to Three-Tables to big Tailwhips. Kelly McGarry (local legend) was the only rider on the day to hit the Double Container Drop (that's two shipping containers stacked on top of each other) on his Atomlab Hardtail, and just for good measure was throwing in Xups for extra points off the high line. Andrew Taylor had his Backflip-NoHanders dialed in, and impressively pulled off a couple of SuperFlips, the first person to do so in competition in New Zealand.


After the semi finals we then saw Phil Sundbaum (USA) and Niki Leitner (AUSTRIA) go through to the final. Andrew Taylor (USA) had come in at third place and Kelly McGarry (NZ) followed in fourth. Both finalists then had three runs to prove themselves one last time to the judges. Phil and Niki then decided to pull off an identical last run and split the prize money. All the riders had had a massive day and everyone was happy with the decision from both riders. Congratulations Phil and Nikki.


After the main event we had the 'Best Tick' comp. All riders who had qualified for the finals day were eligible to enter. They had 45 minutes to session the second double in the main three jumps. Chris Beverland stomped an impressive three way Pendulum. Young local ripper Lewis Jones was going big on the SuperSeaters. Then along came Phill Sundbuam with one of the cleanest 3-Whips I'd ever seen, the comp was clearly his. Until Hamilton (NZ) local Nick 'Butcher' Fowlie rolled in and threw a massive BarrellRoll-Turndown. He crashed on the landing but the crowd erupted and by crowd decision Butcher took home the $500 dollar 'Best Trick' cash prize. Nice work bruva.


So all in all the weekend that seemed like it was never going to go ahead went off with a huge bang. Everyone who was involved with the event had smiles ear to ear. SUCCESS!

I would like to thank everyone who was involved with this event. Bikeparks, for the awesome location of Woodhill Forest MTB Park. Andy at GOFAST for hooking us up with liquid on the day. Hayden and Mark from BikeParks for organizing the event. Tim Hunter and Crew for building a monster of a course (you all know who you are). GlenFoley Construction for all his handy work and spade time. Transition Bikes, Porter Hire, Natures Valley, GeorgeFM, Blacktop, SRAM, Rockshox, Syncros, all the boys at Worralls, Caleb Smith at SPOKE Magazine for bringing up the boys from the South Island and last but not least all the Riders, you all know who you are.

For more information on Woodhill MTB Park go to http://www.bikeparks.co.nz

-RAGDOLL.