NASS 08!

NASS was back at the original Shepton Mallet venue in full force this year. Routeone stand was there and pumping all weekend. With Kingdom mag as a sponsor and handling the inline side of things, it was guarenteed to go off!

R1 stand st NASS

The Kingdom Booth where the mags were getting snapped up!

The whole Routeone team less Tom Portas was there to check it out - Andy Spary, Keir Lindsay, Lee Mainland, Sam Currie, Rich Barber, Zak Buys and Paul Bates.

Jon Julio, Rich Barber, Andy Spary and Paul Bates

Friday night was the classic NASS mash up involving under cooked food, over-priced beer and fairground rides that make you chuck both up anyway. Gotta love it.

The sun sweated everyone out of their tents by about 9am on Saturday so we headed to the park to check out the course. As you can see from some of the pics it was a transition based primarily BMX course but it worked really well for rolling too, offering up loads of transfer and big trick opportunities you know the likes of Aragon, Haffey and Chaz would be all over.

The NASS course

The only criticism would be it could have had more stuff to grind. That didn't stop the legend that is Keir Lindsay absolutely killing the short square rail with 270 backside backslide 270 out, 360 mistrials and 270 back royale 630 out to name a few.

Keir Lindsay getting funky

Zak Buys was laying off the grinds due to a dodegy ankle but was flowing some nice lines and Rich Barber eyed up a few of his trademark massive transfers.

Rich Barber - Transfer

The Qualifying comp was a close event with a very high skill level. Sam Tuffnell looked like he was ready to take on Aragon and Haffey and qualified by a mile for the pro event followed by Julian Coulter and Zak Whitelaw. Another notable run was Dan Mclaren missing out on qualifying and coming 4th by one vote after a solid run which included an effortless alley oop topsoul on the nasty down square rail and true top porn across the nasty flat square rail.

After the comp the park was taken up by the BMX and skateboard events, and the ramps were pretty crowded so we found a spot to set up the Gibbon slackline and had a session on that! The list of tricks you can do on the slackline doubled with sweaty's, kindgrind's and even fishy's getting laced on it.

Keir Lindsay - Sweaty on the Gibbon slackline

It was attached to a hexagon fence type thing and Paul Bates led the way hucking from the slackline over the fence and then transferring to grind the fence. Check out the edit to see some of the tricks that went down.

Paul Bates - Back Royale to huck the fence

Zak Buys - Mizou to huck the fence

If you can remember what happened Saturday night then you didn't drink enough, but i did. So i can't tell you. Although Keir's drunken freestyle battles with Dre Powell were the funniest thing i've ever seen...until the next morning at 9am when I saw Keir still up, still drinking and still roaming about shouting Skull fuck!

The pro event was everything you expected it to be and more. All the top names showing why they are the top names and the unstoppable Aragon and Haffey going bigger than anyone with 900 transfers and crazily high boosts out of the quaters.

Brian Aragon - 540 out the quater

Brian Aragon - 900 transfer

Frazer Watson absolutely went off on one and destroyed the park and the competition to take first place and 2.5 grand!

Frazer with his £2,500 1st place check. Nice.

Followed by Haffey in 2nd and Aragon in 3rd.

Haffey and Aragon with their cheques

Sam Tuffnell made sure no-one would forget his name by doing one of the most ridiculous tricks i've seen in a very long time to take the undisputed 'best trick' award, even though he didn't roll away with it landed, if you see the clips i think you'll agree he earned it.

Sam setting up for the best trick


Sam mid-gap to the roll in to win best trick

All in all a wicked event and put on well by the organisers. There was a VIP area with a hot tub, free booze and Nando's chicked and more free relentless than your nervous system could take. Nuff sed. Looking forward to next year!

Chilling in the V.I.P. Hot-tub

Jenna Downing relaxing in the V.I.P. area