2007 May - UK Champion Of Steel - wscorpion

[wscorpion]

Just finished unpacking from a great weekend in the UK!

Thanks again David (and Elizabeth of course) for your wonderful hospitality, we really hated that we had to leave

As for the contest:

David already told me that it would be one hell of a fight against Dave J. in the contest and it sure was!

That's why I will mainly focus on Dave and me, I didn't really had time to focus on anyone else during the contest, but this doesn't mean the other contestants didn't do a great job, they all did!!!

It was my first contest ever, and I was glad that my favorite event, DO bending was first.

The minute I walked on stage I got really nervous and the first bend really didn't feel that great. I decided to start with an 8mm CRS at 6".

Dave J. started with an 8mm CRS at 7" and we both smoked them.

Second round I decided to take down a 5.5" CRS and Dave got the 6" CRS.

At the final round Dave had to take a shorter one then the 5.5" to beat me, so he decided to take the 5.1/4" and so did I.

Unfortunately neither one of us finished it, but this meant that I had won the first event

The second event was long bar bending, Dave J. started with the 3/4" 48" bar and I decided to bet on the 3/4" 46" bar. Neither one of us got it, so it didn't really matter...

Then Stewart came in and demolished the 3/4" 48" bar, this was really amazing!!!

Then Dave and I had to give it another try, we both took the 5/8" at 34" and both took it down fairly easy.

At this point Stewart should get on stage again, but since no one was going to beat his previous bend, he decided to skip the rest of this event since he had already won it.

Dave and I both started on the 5/8" 30" bar at the final round, and I got stuck at around 90 degrees... I kept struggling for about a minute or 2, and finally got really mad at the bar and finished it off. Dave already finished it so we both took 2nd place after Stewart.

At this point I was still leading with only 1 point ahead of Dave, so the battle continued.

3rd event was reverse bending, I believe Dave started with a 6" nail and I decided to try the G8. Dave smoked it of course, and I got stuck at around 15 degrees, I was pretty certain at first that I could do it, even though I've never bent a grade 8 reverse before to 40 degrees, but it was worth to try :P

the 2nd round Dave took the grade 5 at 6" I believe, and I dropped down to the grade 5 5.5" since I did bend it before reverse. For some strange reason I couldn't get it (maybe because it's triangle, I don't know), but this placed me in a really difficult position since Dave got the 6" G5.

The final round I had to choose between the G5 6" to keep up with Dave or the 3.5" nail to stay ahead of the rest and lose 1 point on Dave.

David (Horne) really made me think about my choice since if I didn't get it, I would loose way too many points for a decent position.

First I decided to try the 3.5" nail, but at the final moment I switched to the G5 6" since I felt the 3.5" nail would be too short to hold on to.

As you can imagine I was extremely nervous for this bend and David made the crowd realize what a difficult decision I had to make.

I barely got it over 40 degrees, but at least I got it and stayed in the race!

Since Dave J. also did a G5 6" I still had 1 point advantage over him and still leaded the contest.

Next up was the long bar bending with 1/2" steel. I knew what I could do here, but decided to start safely with a 15" which I smoked. Dave J took a 16" on the first round, so he had to take a shorter one on the 2nd round.

The 2nd round I took the 14" which wasn't really a problem and Dave J. the 15".

Dave J. had to take the 14" on the 3rd round and since the next step would have been a 12" (there was no 13" available) I decided to skip the final round which placed Dave J. and me on an equal 1st place.

So still running the lead it was time for the 5th event, DU bending.

I knew I could take on an 8mm HRS at 6" but never tried a bolt before. I decided to start with the G5 at 6" and smoked it to my surprise.

Dave J. start with a nail I believe, so next round he had to take the 6" G5.

Next round I decided to give the G8 a try since DO bending felt so good today. Unfortunately not good enough to bend the G8, but what the hell, it was worth a shot.

Since Dave J. also got the G5 6" I had to make a choice to try the 5.5" to beat Dave, or the 5" G5 to get at first position with Stewart.

I decided to take the safe bet and bent the G5 5.5" which set me 2 points ahead of Dave J. and Stewart won his 2nd event!

The 6st event was a new one for me, and I bought some gloves especially for this event. This was a stupid mistake and it won't happen again. Because of the gloves I wasn't able to crush the bar past 90 degrees since I didn't use wraps and it hurted too much.

This resulted in a 3rd place for me and Dave J. won the event and after this event we both stood on 1st place with 41 pts.

I knew I would really have to give everything I had left in the next 2 events to keep the first place...

The 7th event was the nail snapping, Alex (Horne) did an amazing job here with snapping it in 27 seconds, and he's only 15 years old!!! Nice work Alex!!

After that Dave and me got on the stage. I started out very well, but I was no match for Dave J. who snapped the nail in an incredible 14 seconds!!!!

I had to keep fighting at this event since this would've cost me a lot of pts if I didn't.

Finally got the nail after 2 minutes or so and finished 3rd in this event.

This means Dave J. took over the lead of the contest and had 2 pts advantage over me.

With only one event to go (the one I was afraid of from the very first time I knew what the events were going to be) and Dave J. in the lead I knew I had to give it all I could for the 1st place.

I started with all I've got, and got exhausted really fast because of that.

I kept fighting and fighting, but once Dave J. got it there was no use for me to continue, he had won the contest and I turned in second...

Dave J. did a great job and he really earned his 1st place, congratz Dave!!!

congratz to all other contestants as well:

- Jim for becoming 3rd even with an injured finger!!

- Stewart for getting 4th place while he didn't ever bent a piece of steel before, he won 2 of the events, amazing strength this guy!!!

- Graeme with the 5th place and bending some nice bars!

- Elizabeth, well she was really great here, she set a few PR's and was great overall!!!

- Alex, only 15 years old and bent some impressive steel for his age, keep up the good work!!!

- Wayne, even though he didn't have any experience at all with bending he was still able to finish some bars in a very fast time and I'm sure with some practice greater bars will fall soon!

All in all I had a great weekend, I'm very happy with the 2nd place on my first contest, and Dave just was a better overall steel bender, once again, great work Dave!!!!! (We'll have another battle one time, you can count on it ).

Pictures were made by Stewart's girlfriend and she swapped addresses with my girlfriend, so as soon as I know the site where she'll put up the photo's I will post them here.