Written by Ryan Willmott, snowboardermag
DEW HUT JAM 2010
SNOWBOARD BATTLE AT BULLER
Oakley rider Jake Koia
For Immediate Release
Team Oakley takes out the Dew Hut Jam at Mt Buller
31 July 2010 – Team Oakley has taken out the Dew Hut Jam in style, pocketing $12,000 in prize money and proving their metal on a specially built course with ride-able ‘house’ at its centre.
The Dew Hut was centre stage of the slopestyle snowboard course where the top riders in the Southern Hemisphere went for broke in a bid to win part of the $19,000 cash prize purse. The Dew Hut Jam is the richest freestyle snowboarding contest in the country and is a 3-star event on the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour.
Team Oakley
A crowd of thousands braved the inclement weather to watch Team Oakley’s Stef Zeestraten (Wanaka) and Jake Koia (Queenstown) beat some tough competition to win the event, displaying consistently skilled riding, despite the difficult conditions.
“It was pretty full on and we had to step it up. With the visibility we couldn’t see what the other teams were doing – we just knew we had to step it up to win. The feeling when both of us had stomped a trick together was awesome,” said Zeestraten, 25.
“The comp was a really great opportunity to be able to ride with all the best riders in the Southern Hemisphere. The event had an amazing atmosphere, we’re stoked!” he said.
Chris De Campo
New to the Dew Hut Jam this year is the Gatorade Rookie Award which went to 18-year-old Chris de Campo (Melbourne) of Team Burton. De Campo was in the midst of studying for his mid-year school exams when he got the call to replace an injured Tom Pelley.
De Campo impressed the judges with is consistent landing lots of tricks all night, and with his smooth style on tricks like a 50-50 ollie to front board down the rail.
“The course was so much fun to ride, I was just happy riding and I didn’t care if I was going to win or not because we don’t get to ride stuff like this very often in Australia,” said de Campo.
“When I found out I’d won the Gatorade Rookie Award I was really surprised. I’ve never held this much money before! I’m going to use it towards going overseas at the end of the year so I can snowboard more.”
“Chris DeCampo threw down and was really consistent on the night and he deserves everything that comes to him.” said Head Judge and Southern Hemisphere TTR World Tour Representative Mel Simmons.
Best Team Trick went to Team Billabong, Clint Allen and Robbie Walker, for their fast plant gap.
Jason Currie
Mt Dew Hut Jam Top 6 Team Placings
1. Oakley
2. Destyn.Via
3. Billabong
4. DC
5. Burton
6. Ride
Robbie Walker
Dew Hut Jam 2010 Wrap
by Russ Holt
The Event Night.
Man the day started off so horrible with pissing rain all over the mountain – I was drenched through on the 1-lift ride to the course, but surprisingly the course had help up and the park boys at Buller had been slavin on this thing for over a week and it was looking solid. Props to Adam, Stu and all their park crew the setup was truly sweet.
By 2pm when practice rolled around all the riders were finally in up on the hill and ready to roll. The fog was the new problem, but it didn’t really stop anyone throwing down. The new feature next to the Mt Dew hut – Frank the Tank, was getting session heavily with some super stylish wall-rides to spins off and some slides up the roof to backflips or rodeos off. 17-year old Tim Laidlaw started the craze with a 50-50 to backside rodeo gap to the landing from the apex of the roof.
The theme off practice was carried through to the main event – more fog. At least with darkness the 8 lighting towers that Dew had rolled in made a big difference and the rain had stopped. The other theme that carried through from practice was that the Oakley team from NZ – Jake Koia and Stef Zeestraten were killing it. Riding super smooth with technical tricks and riding together complementing each others’ skills.
The team format of the event again caused some havoc because if one rider from a team doesn’t land their trick the team gets a zero for that run. With a 90 minute jam session and a tally of landed runs making up the winner, teams who struggled on consistency really fell back.
Jake Koia
Stand out tricks on the night from me were firstly the gaps off the up box on the side of the roof. Andy Loyd, Stef Zeestraten and Jye Kearney all backflipped from the top of the box down to the landing with speed and then Andy Roth threw a backside rodeo from it – stomping it deep. Secondly the stand out trick was the one that won best team trick. Clint Allan from the Billabong team stopped on the apex of the roof and held his legs in the air to make a flat base 4-foot above the apex. His teammate Robbie Walker then fast-planted his board from the big jump – clearing the whole house one footed and stomping it down in the slushy landing.
Mt Dew Hut Jam top 6 Team Placings.
1. Oakley
2. Destyn.Via
3. Billabong
4. DC
5. Burton
6. Ride
Best Team Trick: Billabong Team – Fast Plant gap.
Chris De Campo – Gatorade Rookie Award
Chris was consistent all night landing lots of tricks and impressing the judges with smooth style. His great work with the TV interviews, happy easy going demeanour and made him a good choice for the Gatorade Rookie Award.
Chris highlight tricks were:
50-50 ollie to front board down the rail.
50-50 frontside 360 off the tank.
After Chris got his over-sized check he said; “I don’t know where I’m going to cash my check because I’m not even sure if I have a bank account!”
Here are some of the tricks I noticed that stood out in my mind from hundreds of hammers:
Oakley Team:
They were always dropping super tight together, were consistent and way more technical tricks than the other teams.
Double Method together over the hut - Stef’s was switch!
They had great Front 7 and back 7 combo’s landed back to back together.
They hit everything.
They both dropped 180 on -180 off’s on the tank.
They did a barrel double hit on the tank, with one frontside wall ride to front 3 out and the other 50-50 back 180.
Stef tailslide 270 gap off on the upbox while Koia gap front boarded to fakie.
Jye Kearney
Jye Kearney threw a double backflip oover the hut in the dying seconds but cam unstuck on landing.
Andrew Roth from the Ride Team threw a huge backside rodeo off the high up box stomping it.
Ryan Tiene from the DC Team tailslide on the upbox to 450 gap off that had the judges drooling.
Jake McCarthy from the Ashbury Team was unlucky with the landings but he was impressing the judges throwing down some heavy tricks going all-out with “amazing style”.
Lance Reece from the Technine Team who lost his teammate Lucas McGrath Halfway through the event due to a knee injury deserves props for trying some super technical tricks including one he was so so close to getting: Back 180 switch 50-50 on the up box to cab 180 50 50 down the rail.
Ben Willick and the Destyn Via Team that included Cohen Davies impressed all night. Ben stomped a solid front board on the up box to back 270 gap.
