Words and Photos by Werner Lamprecht
Saturday 22nd of October 2016, Menlyn Skate Park. Pretoria was its usual hot self. This was to be this year’s venue for the annual Skate For JP Day. I wanted to do something a little different and decided to host a day inspired by “Dime challenge” like mini competitions and spot prize challenges, all inspired by the legend that was JP Du Preez and the tricks he used to do. The turnout and atmosphere was great and the dudes were hyped!
We started the day off with some highest Ollie comps. The 10-16 year old category was taken by Brandon with 5 boards and Kyfie Kruger took the 17-34 year olds’ win with 6 ½ boards.
After the highest Ollie comps the focus went to the quarter pipe spine. A couple of years ago I snapped one of my favourite pics of JP doing a fs nosegrab over this hip. This was the inspiration for the next challenge. To see who can launch one out the highest. Puddy Zwennis came through with the highest nosegrab, while Kyfie launched out for the sickest tucked knee grab of the day along with Anrich Otto busting out the raddest airwalk of the day.
Next up was a best trick comp across and down the pyramid rail. Shaun Burger came out guns blazing with a bs feeble 180 out and in the process also took one of the spot prizes. Kyle Stoffberg sailed through a crookie monster, but the winnings eventually went to Anton Wilsenach. He one upped Shaun and added a tailgrab into his feeble 180 out.
In-between all of the pyramid tricks going down guys like Philip De Vries and Kyfie were going for the spot prize challenges. Philip handled the 2 trick combo on the flat bar like a boss and landed Jp’s legendary fakie tre flip fs boardslide as well as a fs bigspin fs boardslide 270 out. That was insane! Kyfie also got the Jp’s fs feeble bs 180 out.
Next was the wedge to box setup. Here we saw Anthony De Mendonca and Dean Marais coming through to rep the Vale. Dean was getting close to a flip bs nosegrind, Anthony got a fs nosegrind 180 out as well as a fs 5-0 shuvit out. Lloyd Thangwane managed a Spanish grind and even Chris Staub popped a Fs Smith. Shaun Burger did a fs tailslide bigspin out, but it was not enough to beat Philip’s effortless Fs Bigspin fs board. This got him a new board and he was super amped!
I was planning on doing a firecracker down the 8 challenge, but the sun got the better of us and I shifted the focus to the double set where another best trick comp went down. This proved to be very entertaining as both Pretoria and Johannesburg ripped it up. Highlights for me were Pravesh Manga’s flawless heelflips and bs flips. Zuko had bs tails down the ledge and Lloyd popped a switch nosegrind down it as well. This was however not enough to beat Kyle’s bag of tricks. Kyle started with a handrail attack that included a clean fs bluntslide. He then decided to end it off with an Ollie out to nosegrind on the hubba extention. The crowd went wild and it was decided right there. Prize giving was done and Shaun Burger got the skater of the day prize. His nollie hardflip boardslide to fakie on the pyramid rail got him the best trick of the day. Beers were had to end of one of the best days.
I’d like to say thank you to the sponsors on the day. They were Menlyn Skatepark, Slappy Skate Co, DFL Skateboarding, Capital Craft, Humdinger Tattoo Emporium, Emerica, Lifetime Shoelaces and Homegrwn.
I’d also like to thank every single person that came through for the day and shared it with us in Jp’s memory. I’m pretty sure he had his usual smile on his face. See everyone next year!
