Slalom Skateboarding hit the roads of Nashville, Tennessee for the first time ever over the weekend of November 8th, 9th & 10th for the first Honky Tonk race, the US National Championships.
Written by Sarah Byrd Compton.
Photography by Nataly Albee.
Taking the skaters on a tour of some of Nashville’s finest parks and sights throughout the weekend, we kicked off with tight slalom at the historic Centennial Park. Boasting a beautiful backdrop of an exact replica of the Parthenon found in Greece, we started the day out early getting racers checked in and getting practice runs started.
Friday’s dual lane tight slalom showcased some very fast skating across all divisions – Pro, Master, Amateur, and Juniors – with a tight, windy course set by race organizers Josh Byrd and Ricky Byrd. The tight slalom hill was rather mellow with cones spaced from 5.5-7 feet apart but had an easy decline that allowed racers to pump to the finish. It was exactly that, a full on pump race to the finish! With spectators watching on, we raced into the late afternoon where we saw Dominika Ozalina topple the reigning World Champion, Lynn Kramer in the Pro Women’s Division and a truly mind-boggle Men’s final between Gustavs Gailitis and Joseph Kyle Smith with Gailitis coming out on top.
Saturday continued the tour of Nashville parks taking us to Hamilton Creek Park across town, home of the Music City BMX track. Thanks to their generosity for hosting us and volunteering! Saturday’s hill is a nice gentle gradient for a long stretch allowing us to a set a nice, long hybrid course. The course was set by race organizers Josh Byrd and myself, and it had some technical large offsets as well as fast tight cones at the bottom. It was a race to beat the rain all day, and while we almost got there, we didn’t quite to finish out our pro divisions, meaning Junior, Am & Master riders took their head-to-head results while the Pro’s took their qualifying positions as final placements. Highlights of Saturday were seeing one of our young racers, Kelley Apanowicz, qualifying at the top of the Amateur Men’s division & then battling his way onto the podium with a Bronze medal. Not to mention Marcos Soulsby-Monroy had some incredible physics-defying reaction times in his races. Once the rain rolled in, some skaters went to the local indoor skate park, while others waited out the weather with a margarita in hand at the local Mexican restaurant!
Sunday’s hill boasted a beautiful winding park setting in one of East Nashville’s favorite outdoor areas, Shelby Park; however, the rain had a different idea. We got to the hill early to see if the rain would hold off enough to let the hill dry, but sadly, we lost the battle with weather and were rained out for Sunday’s Giant Slalom event. As sad as it was and as excited as we all were to ride the hill, all the skaters still hung out on the hill, ate lunch, got swag bags, and even coaxed Collin Kruse into riding the wet hill.
Sunday evening, we closed out the Honky Tonk weekend with the after party and awards ceremony at Duel in the Sun Tattoos where the owner and tattoo artist AJ Lingerfelt prepared a flash sheet of Honky Tonk Nationals tattoo designs. We enjoyed pizza from Frankie’s Pizza, music by our very own event DJ Wckd.ok, swag from all of our event sponsors, and handed out awards.
Overall results for the Pro division was a Latvian invasion with both Men’s & Women’s pro divisions being won by Gustavs Gailitis and Dominika Ozalina from Riga, Latvia. California native, Scott Hostert, won the US National Champion title for the Masters division. In the Amateur division, the overall title went to Robert “Carlos” Babiarz. Cara Harris won the overall award for the Amateur Women’s division, and Leiola Kahaku for the Junior Girl’s division.
