Red Bull 3rd Shift

Words & photos by Matt Sklar

A field of 13 of the finest riders from the northwest competed tonight in the second edition of Red Bull's 3rd shift, a two hour long jam on an insane mix of street inspired features with a little Red Bull spice.



There were concerns that the feature would not be finished in time, they were still installing coping on the building during the riders meeting, but the park crew guys really busted butt to get it done and looking good for the riders. A tight schedule wasn't the only thing the park crew and the athletes had to deal with, the weather was crazy. The northwest rain turned into a full on blizzard by the time the event started, dropping a good 3-6 inches on the course as the night went on.



Thing started out mellow, with riders going after the down rail, and getting comfortable on the closeout. That didn't last long, as things heated up and guys got going on the roof of the Red Bull building, grinding the chain link, and going huge on the closeout.

Joey Van Deer Meer, fresh off 20 stitches to the hip yesterday took 3rd place. Joey's words on the stitches, "kept me from falling, I didn't fall at all." Some highlights from Joey were all kind of madness on the closeout; 270 to pretzel 270, front swap to front 270 and front 450, and on the rooftop a meaty(Joey's own description) blind 4, and a switch 270. Says Joey "Just swagged out fun taps and stuff!"





In 2nd place was crowd favorite Kevin Curran. Kevin was one of the first skiers to hit the rooftop, and brought his A-game all night. Some highlights from Kevin, in his own words were "270 on 270 out variations on the donkey dick, I was sending the hip jump into the crowd with laid back cork 3's, i did some grinding on top of the roof suspended over the bar and I finished off with some crowd pleasers lol a cork 7 and backflip off the closeout drop."






And finally, on the top step of the podium, was Tyler Tran, who threw tricks even he couldn't describe. Quoted from Kevin, who was driving home from Tyler, "All these are on the deathly close out rail - he did 50/50, 270 on to 450 out, super Britney, front swap to front 270, back AND front 450's, and some shit he can't even describe :)".









Here are a few more photos from the night for your viewing pleasure...







And this one goes out to all the guys that got injured tonight, heal up quick!