2015 July - Backyard Bastard Bash - Frank Pizzo

[Frank Pizzo]

Looks like everyone had a great time. Awesome numbers! How did the bending contest go?

I'll go-ahead and do a little write-up of the bending portion. I don't have the official results sheet in front of me so I'll try to remember things as accurately as possible. Apologies if I get anything wrong.

We came out of the grip contest tired and torn. Between the farmers pick and the blob toss our hands were missing quite a bit of skin and we were all feeling pretty-well depleted. We had three benders: myself, Nick, and Andrew. We each warmed up with some 60d nails and then chose our opening bends.

I opened with a Bastard, Nick and Andrew played it safe and opened with 1/4" x 6" crs (I believe). Nick and Andrew killed their steel in maybe 4 or 5 seconds, and it took me over a minute to finish my bend off!

Second round both Nick and I went for a Huge Bastard and Andrew went for a Bastard. Nick attempted his Huge Bastard in IMP's!! while I tried mine in BB wraps. Unfortunately for Nick the grip contest took a tad bit too much out of him to manage this bend in just IMP's, but the BB wraps gave me just enough padding to get through the bend. Andrew gave a valiant effort, but was just too beat-up to finish off his Bastard.

Round three had Nick re-try a Huge Bastard and myself go for a Grand Bastard. Nick wisely reached for his leather wraps and made fairly short work of his Huge Bastard, but my Grand Bastard, no matter how much I tried didn't move at all!

Final round had me slightly ahead of Nick. He decided to go for a Grand Bastard...so I had to re-attempt one as well. If he bent this piece and I didn't, the contest was his. So I wrapped my Grand very carefully in BB wraps making sure everything felt good and tight. Chalked my hands up thoroughly and took a few moments to psyche myself up. Nick and I got into position in front of the clock and waited for the ref's signal. I missed this bend by a mile last round, but now I had to get it!

We both kinked our steel right away and moved into the sweep quickly. I looked over at Nick and saw his Grand was slightly ahead of mine and just let loose with everything I had left (but was it enough?). When the clock ran out we measured our steel and while neither of us quite reached 2" I was enough ahead of Nick to secure the win.

I think Nick and Andrew would agree It was difficult doing the bending after the grip contest, but I also think it was fitting in a way. A large part of bending is pain tolerance and what better way to test your pain tolerance than beating up your hands for a good 5 hours before even wrapping a bar up!

I had a ton of fun doing it and would like to thank Andrew and Kate once more for hosting, and also Nick for pushing me hard through the bending portion.

Literally can't wait for the next one!

--Frank