February 25, 2001

Click here for a Quicktime clip of the men's finals. It's worth the wait. Honestly.

Danny Kass inverted 7 a.k.a. stale rodeo. crane�photo

Danny Kass and Kim Stacey survived the blowing winds, six inches of fresh snow in the powder pipe and 75 other riders to take top honors in the American Snowboard Tour's halfpipe event at Snow Summit on Saturday, February 24, 2001.

Back in the early days of the American Snowboard Tour riders had a joke that the AST stood for the "Always Snowing Tour." And that's exactly what everyone experienced today at the halfpipe. Every other run it seemed someone was face first in the powdery flat bottom screaming obscenities. Snow Summit did a great job with the pipe; however, thanks to the weather it was a tough one. It was a pipe that easily separated the good from the great.

While other people were having problems, Danny Kass rode with his trademark lackadaisical style boosting huge inverted spins this way and that and edging through the bottom sludge like it wasn't even there. He took the qualifying fun by four points over JJ Thomas and then put down a first run score that would not fall until Danny made his last run. "Ah, I think I may have won some cash," he said after his final run.

Shaun White rocks the stale fish. crane�photo

The closest anyone else would come to bettering Kass' score was JJ Thomas in his final run. Very few ride smoother than Thomas. He launched a huge McTwist, a Michaelchuk, and an alley-oop McTwist mixed in with large straight airs, but still fell two tenth of a point short.

Shaun White was on fire as well mixing up the alley-oop Michaelchuk, McTwist and 720 but fell two points short of Kass' first run score. Luke Wynen and Keir Dillon both went down in the first round of qualifying. On his first hit Dillon went huge on the inverted spin but landed hard in the flat bottom. Laying flat on his back at the bottom of the pipe he looked up and said, "I really glad I came all the way here for this."

On the women's side Kim Stacey walked away from the field. Her first run qualifier put her nearly three points ahead of Tara Zwink and Autumn Rose. In the finals she dominated finishing over two-and-a-half points ahead of Nevin Schwarz, and Carabeth Burnside.

No, you really don't want to be a judge. It's cold. crane�photo

While she didn't appear to have any problems she was glad for the win. "Oh my gosh am I lucky I stayed on my feet," she said. "It was sketchy in there, but it was fun."

Women's Final Results

1. Kim Stacey
2. Nevin Schwarz
3. Cara-Beth Burnside
4. Tara Zwink
5. Autumn Rose
6. Holly Lyons
7. Kirstin Bedard
8. Jana Manfredi
9. Molly Purnell
10. Amy Johnson
11. Alisa Mokler
12. Alexis Waite
13. Jessica Zalusky
14. Paige Warner
15. Tiffany Marshall
16. Hanna Beaman

Men's Final Results
1. Danny Kass
2. JJ Thomas
3. Shaun White
4. Kirk Short
5. Andy Finch
6. Travis Rice
7. Tyrone Biddle
8. Stephen Meyers
9. Brian Richardson
10. Steven Fisher
11. Jimi Scott
12. Ted Rauh
13. Brent Meyer
14. Nick Batko
15. Kevin Casill
16. Everett Long
17. Lane Knaack
18. Brian Regis
19. Stefan Clausen
20. Daniel Williams
21. Lucky Lopez
22. Dustin Wells
23. Trevor Brown
24. John Jackson
25. Peter Scontras

Click here for a Quicktime clip of the men's finals. It's worth the wait. Honestly.