The Rice Revolution

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

By Sam Petri

Jackson Hole, Wyoming - Curt Morgan, producer and president of Brain Farm productions, and Jason Winkler, producer and president of Wink Inc., side slip down the gut of lower Dick’s Ditch at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, careful not to disturb too much of the precious snow. Morgan is on a snowboard, Winkler on skis.

Around them, on either side of the gully, are a series of hand-built jumps glazed over with a few inches of fresh powder. The run has been closed for a week, and remains roped off. Above their head is a guy-wire, where, in a few days, a high definition “Spydercam” will capture the master shot of 17 of the best snowboarders in the world as they compete in the Quiksilver Natural Selection All Mountain Freestyle Invitational. The new competition, with a $75,000 prize purse, is the brainchild of Jackson native Travis Rice.

The two media men, Morgan and Winkler, have come together to co-produce two TV shows (Morgan will also produce a DVD) from the unique event. They are side slipping through lower Dick’s Ditch to see where they should station their eight camera men during the competition. The idea is to shoot from as many angles as possible to capture the best footage in order to create the highest quality show about a few of the greatest professional snowboarders competing in an all new event in fresh powder conditions.

“You see that little pine tree?” Morgan asks Winkler, pointing at the tip of a tree sticking out of the snow in a landing zone. “Travis is going to land 10 feet past that.” The distance is huge, way beyond where the average rider would land, and beyond what a cameraman might expect, which is Morgan’s point. The landing has natural irregularities - like little pine trees sticking up - but there’s also plenty of powder and transition to make it forgiving and doable. The hit is no groomed park jump, more an enhanced lip to what is already there. What makes the course difficult is the way Dick’s Ditch naturally twists and bottlenecks. It’s not a straight open run like most slope style events you see on TV.

The Natural Selection competition is different from traditional snowboarding competitions because instead of taking place on one day in a snowboard park, it’s broken out over seven days, with two event days in natural terrain. The first day of competition will take place in Dick’s Ditch, the second in Casper Bowl. The weeklong “holding period” lasts Jan. 30th to Feb. 5th.

Organizers and riders will wait for the best two days of weather to compete. Most likely, there will be a break in between the two days of competition so that Morgan and Winkler can move their cameras from Dick’s Ditch to Casper Bowl. Overall, the event runs like a surf competition, only on snow.

“I took a lot of influence from [Terje Hawkinson’s] Arctic Challenge. That’s kind of the original, for the riders, type contest,” said Rice. Although the Arctic Challenge, hosted in Norway, is a quarter pipe event, and the Natural Selection event is more of a powder slopestyle event, the format of Natural Selection is designed for the riders. This simple concept is something that is lost in many snowboard contests throughout the world, according to Rice.

This past week Rice traveled to opulent Aspen, Colo., to compete in Winter X Games 12. For his career, it’s important that he goes. It is, after all, the most widely televised and watched snowboard event in the world. Of course, if you watched this year, you may have noticed that he was robbed of his chance at winning the “Big Air Competition” through a highly dubious judging process. But that’s the X Games. Rice promises the Natural Selection competition will be different from the uber-hyped, sponsor-plugging event.

“It’s pretty much going to be the polar opposite from the X Games,” he said, “Basically, the perfect day for me would be riding The Vill on a pow day.” And that’s the type of environment he hopes to create during the two days of competition.
When we spoke with him he had just finished X Games slope style practice and was relaxing in his room at The Little Nell, one of Aspen’s premier hotels, and one that will soon sit slope side to JHMR.

“Being down here this year at the X Games, there’s a slope style course that I’m going to run, and the course is pretty punishing. … You have to pay to play,” Rice said. “It’s not that fun. Funky jumps to real flat landings. … That’s kind of the gig with the Natural Selection, is to actually give us a week holding period, so we can wait for that good day and actually utilize our best natural resource, which is fresh snow.”

“He goes to all these other contests,” said Morgan, who, aside from being Rice’s partner in Brain Farm, is also his good friend. “He went to Icer Air last year, he won that. Then he went strait to Munich, for Air and Style. He won that. Then we went to Tokyo Dome, he won that, then he went to the US Open, he won that. You know what I mean? I think in between all that, he was conspiring to build this contest that was a little less corporate.”

There are about 50 people helping put the Natural Selection competition together, Rice said. One defining trait of any competition is the trophies associated with the event. Rice asked his high school friend and local artist, Ryan Haworth, to help create the three trophies for Natural Selection. The trophies, first, second and third, are made from Bison skulls, large, medium and small, respectively.

“I forget where we were but we were just talking about it and he was asking how hard it would be to paint skulls because he had found this sick skull when he was in Bali,” said Haworth, “Ellen over at Wink Inc got them ordered. … I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do as far as a pattern.”

Haworth has decided to paint the first place skull blue, the second place skull red, and the third place skull yellow. As we watched him at work in his studio in Victor, Idaho, he was still making plenty of changes, having already painted over his initial pattern. At this point, all that can be said is that the trophies are one of a kind and will be a true honor to receive. They were impressive even in their unfinished state.

There will be a total of five judges at the event. The head judge will be Tom Burt. “He’s done everything there is to do in snowboarding,” said Rice. “I even had him as a guide in Alaska for many years. The guy is wisdom.” Mike Basich, Jamie Lynn, and Rice’s neighbor Dustin Varga will also judge. Ishi Hara, a Japanese snowboarder, is also flying in from Japan to judge, Rice explained.

Riders will be judged on fluidity, style, creativity, amplitude, power and use of terrain. The best of two runs will count at each venue. At least one stylish straight air is mandatory on the Dick’s Ditch venue. Each judge will score the riders based on their overall impression of any given run. Powder slashes are encouraged. The combined high score determines the winner.

Casper bowl will be the most spectator-friendly place to watch the competition, and the easiest to judge. Dick’s Dick, with its narrow walls and twisting terrain, will not be entirely visible to the crowd or the judges.

“Worst case scenario, we’re going to judge Dick’s in post,” said Rice.
Because the judging is based on the overall impression of each judge, it would not make sense for the judges to be sprinkled throughout Dick’s Ditch. Instead, they will most likely judge from the best possible vantage point and then review footage of each run that they could not see after the first day of competition and then score the event in the evening.

The Natural Selection competition is a Ticket to Ride event. TTR is the new governing body of snowboard competition; much like FIS is the governing body of ski racing. It is now in its third year. Rice used to serve on the board as a representative of the USA.
“The TTR has taken a lot off of the surf tour. There are all different ratings, 6-star events through 1-star events. There are only six 6-star events in the whole world, they have the most points,” said Rice. “We decided we wanted to do a 4-star this year because we feel that a new contest should have to start out as 4-star event.”

Some of the biggest names in snowboarding will descend upon JHMR this week. The latest, updated list of riders are Colin Langlois, Robbie Kingwill, Nicolas Muller, Mark Landvik, Andreas Wiig, David Benedek, Sammy Lubke, Roman De Marchi, David Carrier-Porcheron, Gigi Ruff, Bjorn Leines, Bryan Iguchi, Devun Walsh, Hampus Mosesson, Mark Carter, and Kyle Clancy. However, due to weather, flights and scheduling conflicts, this list could change.

For up-to-date contest information call (307) 638-2574. At press time, the first day of competition is scheduled for Thursday in Dicks Ditch. The second date of competition, which will take place in Casper Bowl, will be announced on the hotline. Video from each day can be seen at www.quiksilver.com/naturalselection.

There has never been a snowboard competition quite like this before - in powder conditions and natural terrain at a resort. It will not only be a first for JHMR, but for the entire snowboarding world. As Rice put it, “We’ve got a frigging epic community.”

Photos by Tim Zimmerman
Jackson native Travis Rice, considered by many to be one of the best all-around snowboarders in the world, changes the sport by creating a new competition.

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The Rice Revolution | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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