Napier took a team up to the first ever Granite City Invitational on Saturday the 7th of Feb. The Competition was held at Aberdeen’s GarthDee Dry slope, there had been a few inches of snow fall, but not enough to cover the whole slope, so an interesting time was had by all. The first event was female individual duals, where Kirsty hope was knocked into 4th place by her older sister. Jenny Wilkie was unfortunately put out in the second round so no luck there. Next up was the guys, where an unfortunate Erik Esson (who’s lovely parents put up with us for the night) was drawn against Euan Maggee who raced an awesome event and went on to win overall. Chris Orriss and Cameron Black Had about as much luck and were put out in the first round.

Across on the Freestlye course Sam laurie was warming up with some crowd pleasing airial acrobatics only to have his evening cut short by a heavy slam from (I think) a massive 540, leaving him hobbling around and feeling a little worse for ware.
Following In Sams footprints Lori-jane Coates steps up to the kicker, goes big, catches an edge and procedes to slide the rest of the way down the slope on her chin, not feeling to great about herself.

Back to the racing, A travastey of a start from your captain Swayze, left him collapsing round the first and seccond gate putting him out in the first round, no such bad luck for both Matt (sparrow) Higginson and Tom Akass who powered their way to an all napier final resulting in tom first sparrow second. Good Lads.
Recovered from her chin scrapping Lori beasts her way through the first two rounds of Girl boarders, into a threeway final. Finishing second to a chick from Glasgow. Not Bad.

Team events were next and again no luck for the skiers Put out early on, finishing out of the top 4. The boarders on the other hand, showed some real class and after getting over his fear of start gates Swayze even managed to finish the course. The team dominated on such a level that sparrow even managed to cross the line in switch to make it a napier Victory.

All in all a great time was had by everyone competing even if the drive home was slightly more intense than originaly planned.

Hope to see everyone out on wednesday to support your club up at braehead busses leaving from the union, time TBC.