Ryan Sheckler Wins Inaugural Streetstyle Skate Comp

The Dew Tour Toyota City Championships took the city venue and completely capitalized on it in every aspect. With San Francisco’s Bay Bridge in the back drop, Dew Tour’s first-ever streetstyle course shut down a major street for three blocks in order to showcase the urban environment contest setting while utilizing all types of street inspired objects such as jersey barriers, cement bus stop benches, semi-truck trailers, stair sets rails, ledges and erected scaffolding with kicker ramps to launch up to and off of – the creativity of the course build alone was a spectacle in and of itself.

With this new style of competition nobody knew what to expect from the skaters and all fourteen brought something unique to the street. The format consisted of four runs a piece with only the best score counting making for an all or nothing style of skating from everyone.

Ryan Sheckler’s winning run

By the end of the competition it was clear, Ryan Sheckler put together the absolute best run on his first go. Following his kickflip off the first kicker-like obstacle and ollie over the Toyota Prius after smashing through the open cargo container, Sheckler capped off his run with a giant 360 out of the dumpster kicker onto the scaffolding as the highlight near the end of the course.

“I really liked the course and the format. It was cool to be back at Dew Tour and skate with these guys I haven’t skated with in, realistically, five years competitively. That whole event was awesome!” said Sheckler still signing autographs and taking pictures with countless fans the flooded the course following the awards ceremony. “Hell yeah!” said Sheckler when asked if you liked the new discipline and course design. “I’m a super fan of this. I hope they do a lot more events like this and I hope I get invited.” Lucky for him, an invite isn’t hard to come by for champions, especially when you are the first-ever to win a new discipline.

Milton Martinez

Milton Martinez on the other hand, although he skated well throughout the competition, really came through with his best run of the day as the last skater to go. As Martinez prepared to skate his final run he sat in sixth place, but with this all or nothing style of judging with only the best run scoring he took his final skate and left everything he had out on the course. Martinez was one of the faster skaters on the course, often pushing and power sliding to control his speed for every obstacle. Milton started off his runs with giant tricks like his ollie of the trolley car and his 360 bigger spin off the top kicker setup. Then, while at full speed Martinez landed a frontside nose grind down the rail from the semi-truck bed, ollied over the car at the end of the cargo container tunnel and finally capped off his run with a gigantic ollie off the top of cargo container at the end of the course – the ollie forced an eruption of cheers from the crowd. Martinez is a beast, and for those that before this weekend were unfamiliar with him are now fully aware of who he is and what he is capable of after amazing skating in two separate finals and taking a second place finish in streetstyle. 

“This [course] is like Tony Hawk the game, it is absolutely crazy. I had a good time skating but it’s not easy, it’s gnarly. I’m stoked,” said Martinez moments after the competition still feeling the impact from his giant drop. “I want to say thank you for building this as this is the gnarliest [course] ever!”

David Gravette

Rounding out the top three was the northwest hesh skater David Gravette. Gravette’s style is unlike most that routinely ride contests, but this streetstyle course allowed his creative style to shine.

“I’m stoked, I liked the downhill, how it keeps your speed and the big obstacles throughout. I’m a little bit more of a janky style skater it think, if it is too good it’s not as fun,” said Gravette amidst signing autographs and taking photos with fans. “There’s lots of different things here, I like it. I’d like to skate more snowboard slopestyle concrete courses like this more often,” Gravette continued with regard to the design. As for the tricks he laid down, “I was going to go for the longest nose manual I could to stoke the crowd out, but it reverted itself and I just went on and did the rest of my run as usual.”

The rest of Gravette’s run started off with a 50-50 up and down the metal rail piling before the long nose manual to revert out, then he capped it off with a giant 360 nose grab out of the dumpster kicker onto the scaffolding. Finally, a course fit for a high-speed hesh skater.

Results

1st Place – Ryan Sheckler 90.25

2nd Place – Milton Martinez 89.75

3rd Place – David Gravette 89.00

4th Place – Ryan Decenzo 86.75

5th Place – David Gonzalez 86.00

6th Place – John Rattray 79.25

7th Place – Keegan Sauder 78.50

8th Place – Dave Bachinsky 75.50

9th Place – Manny Santiago 73.25

10 Place – Taylor Bingaman 73.25

11th Place – Garrett Hill 68.50

12th Place – Chad Bartie 65.25

13th Place – Zered Bassett 62.50

14th Place – Nick Merlino 56.75