On September 4th Wheelscape summoned up 944 year-old vibes for the opening jam of their amazing new concrete park that has made its own history in the historic town of Hastings by having the first proper cradle in the UK. Boasting both a €1066 purse to be taken by the ‘Conquerer of All’ and a £300 best trick comp courtesy of The Source skateboarders travelled from all over the UK to attend this exciting day in the history of concrete parks in the UK.
Wheelscape’s Jeremy Donaldson got stuck in and wrote a round-up of the day for us to go with the official Wheelscape edit of the jam which went online this week. Read on to hear what went down and be sure to watch the fantastically put-together video for the day below. Well done to all involved, the park looks stellar. Over to you, Jeremy…
Below: Mark Munson flying frontside
I’m writing this in the middle of the night as I’m still so hyped on the Battle of Hastings I can’t sleep.
Hastings put on a beast of an opener to match their new park. An army of Scottish animals, born and raised on gnarly concrete parks battled it out with the local and not so local English knights, Welsh new blood and even some crazy fella from the Isle of Wight… Pivot Shove to Fakie in a pool? Crazy indeed – Greg Nowick.
You could tell Mark Munson’s had a few Oregon trips the way he took to the place in the Master’s comp. Along with Sean Goff, they dominated the concrete; Auntie Sean was absolutely flying round the place, smithing and lip-sliding the full length of the pool sidewall, getting right up on the ceiling in the cradle and taking first place.
In Wheelscape’s €1066 battle, Mark Murray T-Bag’d first place with relentless runs taking tricks most people would be stoked to do on a 2 foot quarter and sticking them up the gnarliest walls in the park. Jake Collins smoothed out everything in the park with big, clean airs and lip-trickery, all spiced up with a couple of huge bonlesses blasted several feet out of the vert extension. Greg Nowik just couldn’t stop, massive long runs mixing big airs and inventive tricks like blunt to melon, in the pool!
Mike McGuiness tackling the cradle
Alex Hallford and Carl Wilson killed it
Want more blunts? How about an ollie blunt flip, in the same 9 foot bowl? Call Jed Cullen with his robot knee and give him £300 from The Source for best trick.
The finals saw Daryl Nobbs and Jono Coote both smack their skin heads on the flat bottom, along with death match style scenes with 3 skaters in just the egg pool at the same time. Fortunately, before the end, Daryl was back killing the all the lines he’d wired whilst we worked on the park and Jono was miller flipping clean over loveseat.
Even a wee report like this wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Colin Adam and Trevor Johnson – these two guys killed it all day – smashed the coping to bits. Colin was kicking out huge airs inc. a sick rocket lien and smashing the blocks with the best grinds of the day. Trevor flew all over the show and reeled in Hurricanes, switch Frontrock slides and full tilt backside nosegrind reverts in the pool.
Potter absolutely slaying transition I’m too scared to even look at with this front 5-0
The standard of skating was so high it was unreal. We’ve got incredible skaters in this country now coming up off the new concrete parks and everyone in attendance were so blown away by the sickness of it all. Wheelscape were really stoked to get the opportunity to design and build a bowl on this scale, blown away by the shredding, ready for more and want to give a massive thank you to Joe Sandland, Matt Davey and all in Hastings – all their hard work made this happen.
Mark Murray claiming his €1066
And here’s why: Hurricane on that thing? You must be Teabagging mad.
Watch the Wheelscape edit below and view some photos from the Wheelscape team in the gallery below. Don’t let these good people’s work go to waste. Start booking your trains, start pestering your mates, get down to Hastings and get shredding. You can find the park at Falaise Rd, White Rock Gardens, Hastings, TN34 1ES or check the map.
Hastings Skatepark: The Battle of Hastings €1066 from Wheelscape Skateparks on Vimeo.
[nggallery id=9 template=”galleryview”]