Words and photos by Philip Procter
It’s Grim Ooop North and no cobbled Yorkshire town is grimmer than Dewsbury, or more aptly known as Doomsbury. The credit crunch didn’t start in America, its been manifesting itself in recession up here since the miners strike and guess what? Nobody up here cares one little bit. The Ripped Skatepark defies local, and world crisis and plods from one month to the next scraping together barely enough loot to keep the doors open, let alone the electricity on.
So on to the jam, this place has maximum crashup factor during busy sessions, add in a jam format and your always going to get carnage, this is no place for tight trucks. The local kids showed out in force and eagerly waited for the out of towners to struggle with the skateparks own brand of challenging obstacles. The main focus was the Death Box and countless wallride combos, Death’s Moggins persistently kept at the 8 feet high vert box to pull a frontside tailblock that Grosso would have been proud of at the Turf. Riot Squads Alex Barton unexpectedly exchanged his clean style for gnarly and took the best trick comp with a barrage of indy nosepicks, front tail slides and a blunt rocks on the box, with a notable mention to Jay Andrews for sticking with his back disaster and pulling it in the jam, and winning a set of wheels for his troubles.
Barrow-in-Furness’s Joxa pulled out some unorthodox lines around the park and without even sessioning the death box managed to chuck in gap to disaster and front rocks after attacking every vertical surface in the park. Little Alex Decuna took the now mandatory game of s.k.a.t.e. and tirelessly hit every obstacle in the park for good measure.
The local park sharks had the spot on lock, hitting closed off areas without fear of reprisal and definitely took some chunks out of the gnarly authentic pool copin. Music on the day was DJ’d by Livewire, who killed it on the 1200’s with some Vadim enthused hiphop beats while Mury P and Bane from No Pretence held it down on the mic, looks like there is a strong local hiphop scene up here that’s worth keeping an eye on. Props to Lovenskate, Death, Lakai, DVS and Matix for gladly supplying flow of proddy for the toss and prizes for the rippers.
Jams like this are the lifeblood of smaller skateparks, and it’s only a matter of time before the influx of council endorsed outdoor comes to an end, plus British weather only allows us to skate them for what? Half of the year? So indoor parks like the Ripped really need all the support they can get, especially after the effort put in to keeping this place open, skaters really need to mark Ravensthorpe on the map when planning road trips this summer or sadly, it will die.
Hit it up….RIP IT UP!!!
Peep the Spot Check of thispark here and visit www.myspace.com/savetheripped to help make a difference.
Footage below by Phil Procter and Claire Wilson.
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