Ain't no thing but a chicken wing

Year three of this mind fuck for WeGnar.  Legendary Banked Slalom Next Gen Qualifiers.  These days if your under 11, you have to show up on MLK day, and qualify to be able to race in the big show.  Years ago, when Milo was in it, you could get in on the lottery, sponsor spots or get in with the Locals Qualifier.  Now, it's only the qualifier.  Shit's heavy too.  Like this year, there were 20 kids competing for what they said would be 3 spots in the slalom.  JF Pelchats kid was there, Temple Cummins rat, then a whole slew of Whistler kids that came down in buses, with coaches and soccer dads that made me look normal.  The stakes were definitely high this year, and knowing how things played out in past years with Mac, I was stressed.  The first year he did this, 3 years ago, lil guy got 4th place, and they only took 3.  That's worse than finishing last, almost making it I mean.  Last year, he finished in the same spot, one out of the money.  But...the next morning we had an email from Amy Howat that invited Mac to come run the race because his time was right there with the top 3 dudes.  I think it was because he went up to her before the race, introduced himself, then thanked her for putting on the event.  Whatever, he got in but didn't get duct tape.  This year, he's 10 years old and wants it.  Specially since his brother won the event when he was 11, and Mac wants to accomplish more than his big bro does at an earlier age.  So that leaves us with what went down on Monday.  The race. 20 kids and there were 10 of them that could of won the race.  We woke up in Skykomish at 5:30AM, left the house by 6AM, met Kid Fresh and Meier on I5 at 7AM and arrived at Baker by 9AM.  Signed up, and went to the course.  Which wasn't the traditional Banked course either as they are saving that for the actual race.  This course was down the Death Star, which was tight as fuck.  They let us do as many practice runs as we could get in, and we got 4 of them, and for some reason, I couldn't get a full pull thru the course.  My 165 was too big to navigate thru the course, or the course was too tight for my skill less ass to navigate my 165 thru...whatever.  Mac an Meier on the other hand were getting thru no problem, and there were plenty of problems in the course to navigate.  Owe-Win and Why-At, our friends from Spokane came to Stevens for the weekend to shred, before making their way up to Baker to qualify and those two little guys were ripping the course as well.  Cannon Cummins looked much like his parents, both multi pro division Banked Slalom winners, and was hauling balls thru the course.  Then there was the rabid pack of Canadians that were slaying it.  Yep, it was on.  Mac and I chatted, talked about being humble in winning and gracious in loosing and our goal of the day, was to make it thru the course with a full pull and let the cards fall where ever they fell.  So we told ourselves anyway. 

I don't know if Gnar said his prayers or not before getting in that start shack but someone was on his side.

Terror Squad 2.0, Wyatt, Owen, Gnar, and Meier.

Next Gen class went last, at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  Right when shit hardens up and the light goes flat.

Wyatt out of the gate.

Meier in the gate.

The results and times. 

Winner winner, chicken dinner.  But we had pizza that night.

This .35 second glimpse into the day is pretty rad.  Turn up the volume and you hear me scream "give er WeGnar, GIVE ER!"  Then there's a pause and you hear Wes Makepeace go "given er..." as he rolls thru the first couple turns.  And as he gets down the course he drops a "straight given."  Yea, don't know how well that translates to blog land readers, but getting that out of Wes, and the fact that the day was over, almost all the dudes were done and he's up there watching Gnar go...it was pretty special.  Thanks Wes. 

So the cards fell on our side this year, finally.  Gnar got the fastest time by 3 seconds in the class, and would of won the 12-15 year old Juniors class, and placed 2nd in the class above that, Younger Amateurs, as well as winning both women's classes and winning Grand Masters class.  Dude was on rails.  It was the perfect storm of us riding consistently this season when the snow has been marginal, him wanting it more than ever and his new CAPITA Microscope and Union Mini Contacts being unfair weapons of course destruction.  Congrats Mac, you earned it.