2009 June - 1st Annual Woodall Grip Challenge - The Natural

[The Natural]

Steve's outside right now munching on American painkillers and talking to my step-dad. Ryan Johnson and his girlfriend ended up staying the night here. Andrew D. and Zach Coulter left earlier this morning after a night of drinking, pool-playing, and swimming.

The competition was very well run. I told the guys who helped out that they probably do not realize how helpful they were, since they have not seen how slipshod some grip contests can be. Big thanks to them.

The judging was very fair. What would have counted as "good enough" in other contests was given a simple "No good" at this one. Nobody received special treatment. That's the way I like it.

Steve closed a #4 in competition, then thirty minutes after the competition was over, he closed an easy #4 that Aaron had brought and then a normal #4 with a wider-than-parallel set, the attempts being done without warm-up and only minutes apart. He truly can do this shit all day. (He just told me he did one of these two closes without chalk).

Aaron C. put in a very solid performance all around, in spite of his battle with Crown Royal the night before.

Andrew's going to be a serious threat to Chad in a year or less The only thing holding him back is his pinch, and after talking to him about this he tells me he's making it priority #1. He won the V-bar contest after the main contest, pulling an easy 300.

Jedd put in very good numbers all around. After missing a 245 pinch by quite a bit, he came back to pull it his next attempt. A good show of mental strength.

Chad improved on his competition best in the axle event with a pull of 440 pounds, an increase of 18 pounds since GGC '08. Everything else was typical Chad as well. He's still the guy to beat.

I got 6th, Paul got 7th, Ryan got 8th, Chris got 9th, Brent got 10th, and Zach got 11th.

-Rex

Edited June 21, 2009 by The Natural