Here's Louis' Writeup from the 'Pavel / Gang Of Germany outlaw slalom race, Düsseldorf & Cologne 2008 (in association with Carhartt, Concrete Wave, and Rockstar drinks)'"The weekend started off with the English contingent setting off on Friday night to Germany, in Top Gear style. Sam Gordon, Rob Ashby, and I got the late flight with a cheapo airline while Paul Price raced down the motorways and autobahns in his 350z. The three of us got to stanstead, went through security, and in true British style gravitated towards the pub before boarding the plane. A few pints and a 50minute flight later we had landed at Düsseldorf Weeze, an airport still under construction in the middle of bloody nowhere. We got our rental car, met some random Venezuelan skateboarder who hitched a ride with us, and spent about half an hour trying to figure out how to start the modern German motor with keyless ignition. We bombed down the autobahn and arrived at our hotel in über-trendy Oberkassel around 1am. Naturally Jeremy Clarkson had beaten us to the hotel by a long shot, so we retreated to the bar to drown our sorrows and to prepare for racing on Saturday morning.
Saturday, and it was straight down to a hill along side the Rhine for the race and to meet the other Brits, Ella Roggero and Mick Reiss.
Most of the morning was spent training for the Amateurs Straight slalom, a course of cones spaced about 6feet apart in a straight line, and the Amateurs Special slalom, where the challenge is to be able to make it though an irregularly spaced course with a couple of surprise offset cones thrown in all while maintaining speed and control, much like ski slalom.
The racing got underway and 40 ams from all over Europe went head to head in dual Special slalom races. After qualifications, it went to a round of 16 in which I got knocked out due to coming off my board in both my runs (which I put down to having my board wrongly setup! Always blame the equipment), but Sam Gordon went on to take 6th place (to give an idea of how close the times were, 3rd place was only 0.114s faster than Sam's 13.277s run!). Mick Reiss placed 12th, I placed 16th, and Ella Roggero 31st (again, very close, the difference between 16th and 31'st place was barely 1 second).
Later in the day, and better luck for me! We had the Am's Straight Slalom, another head to head racing format, with me finishing in 8th place, Mick 11th, Sam 13th, and Ella 21st. More close times, with the difference between 1st and 10th being under a second. Sam lost to Pelle Gustavson of Sweden in their head to head race, and so received "The Finger" at its debut race. It's basically a big plastic middle finger which you receive when you've lost a race, with the idea being that you want to offload it onto some other unlucky soul at your next competition. So thanks to Pelle the British amateurs at least came home with one 'prize' among them.
The Pro's were the last to race, and our biggest success of the day was with UK Pro Paul Price placing 3rd in both Straight and Special Slalom.
Saturday evening was a Pool Party with Barbecue! The wooden and skateable kind of pool no less, situated in the Pavel Skateboards factory where Donald Campbell produces his fantastic products. Most of the skaters just chilled out, smoked, drank, and ate wurst.
Sunday was meant to be a Giant Slalom race, but this was rained off. Although this was a bit unfortunate, I think among a large portion of the racers there was a secret sense of relief, as we were spared horror of a 10ft launch ramp (which is pretty much the biggest ramp seen in recent years). Instead the racing was moved indoors to a warehouse, where we were faced with banging house music and monged faces at an illegal rave. Once they'd cleared off we had a very quick, informal fun race with Sam Gordon coming 8th (being beaten by Pelle again in 7th, reinforcing Sam's ownership of The Finger), Mick Reiss in 9th, Me in 15th, and Ella Roggero in 26th. In my head to head against Mick Reiss i was beaten by 0.002s! DAMN!
Overall it was a great competition, great people, great location and great skating. Brilliant start to the season!
The final standings saw Frank Beste take 1st in the Amateur Special Slalom, Antonio Saluena 1st in Amateur Straight Slalom, Michel Dupont 1st in Amateur Indoor Slalom, and somewhat predictably the ladies' man Dominik Kowalski took 1st in all three Pro races." by Louis Selby