ASRA - Australian Skateboard Racing Association

On the road to Almabtrieb IDF world cup

News from the Basement Skate Blog

Maga and Rob head to Almabtrieb in search of IDF World Cup glory and find a country already celebrating another world cup. IDF WORLD CUP RACE REPORT

On the road to Almabtrieb - Rob McWhinnie

Which World Cup?


The swiss mountains had been covered in rain for a few days, we managed to get a shred in everyday and hit some amazing roads, getting one run in before the cops would be busting the fun. With the soccer world cup featuring Germany we headed to deuchland a day earlier then planned to watch the match and party hard in the homeland.

Cam's toe was giving him hell after a recent breakage so he sat out the rain runs, Jakoop had no problems heading straight into standies on the butter pavement.

SONY DSC

jakoop from Rob McWhinnie on Vimeo.

The road to Germany


We had woke up with nothing to do but drive a hour into Germany and find a camp, on the way we ended up finding over 5 different runs , a gnarly first one found by chance, then we spotted another run on the other side of the hill, then another and on and on, we had found a secret valley on the border of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. I tell you this land is amazing, so many pins its just insane.

On arrival to Almabtrieb, the first of the Euro world cups, we set up early and spent a couple of days drinking beer with our feet in a cold local river, relaxing before the race week. teams and riders started showing up and it wasn't long till the campsite was pumping.

World Cup practice 


Practice was fun, I tried to remember the race pace from last year and attack the course at the same speed, I had some problems with my gear and some dodgy shaky bearings on cast trucks prevented me from concentrating and nailing everything. Jacko sorted me out with some fresh hard wear and the next day I was frothing on railing the track.

World Cup - a long start line has some guys pushing to the limit

The IDF timing system has once again been damaged in transit and has failed on quali day. there's not too many options when this happens and the back up plan was to hold a race to Qualify. Some riders had a bitch to the IDF and led a motion to let the top 16 riders on the hill a free pass to race day and then it voted in.

This was the first time I had seen this system in-placed and I was a bit pissed off, a level playing field for all competitors is what's great about our world cup circuit. 16 top level riders now have more wheels for race day and own their own heat come round one, while everyone else has to burn more wheels and only battle for a highest possible position of 17th. There really should be a more legit system in place for when this kind of thing happens.

If the riders are that good then they have nothing to worry about in a race to qualify, and if they are top level riders theres a good chance they have wheels sponsors to load them up for such events.

Race to Qualify


Race to qualify was broken up into 3 groups of 5 round robins, my draw was pretty good, ended up with a load of fast sweeds and a few americans, with an extra day on the hill in race conditions its only been beneficial for myself and I'm feeling more and more confident on the hill every run.

Maga had some good runs too, testing every way she can of taking the two big left hander corners, she made a few passes on other girls and picked off the guys who crashed, shes on the hill atm racing in repercharge and i've got my fingers crossed for a safe day for her.

Swiss Alps teaser - Maga from Rob McWhinnie on Vimeo.

I managed to man up and win all my heats, These wheels are so grippy and after taking a few runs with the likes of krimes and byron i've nailed the track no slides or foot breaks and did so in all my heats, a personal challenge im stoked got pulled off.

Tomorrow is race day, the heats are going to be stacked and the racing will be fast, I'm down to push it really hard on this track and once again I'm aiming for my first top 8 finish. wish us luck and all the other Aussies out here battling the best in the world.

Rob.

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Tags: basementskate, idf

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