Brackets on brackets (photos by Ben Jacob)

        The 3rd annual Popsicle Jam was held out at Quest ATX cable park right at the end of the year and what a banger of an event it was! The TPBYZ took all of their features from the park, brought them all over to the front stretch and linked up 4 different feature setups that provided some epic riding. The weather was warm in Austin, Texas that day and the crowd was out to watch some killer riding on a brand new different setup.

        A quick course layout includes the ever so classic unit park-tech pipe split in half and staggered to make a rail to rail but also having the safety on the first pipe so that you could gap from one to the other. Across from it was a kicker gap to landing ramp that provided a very snowboard like feel when landing tricks. Further down there was a rooftop transfer that had a tech feature butted up against it which allowed triple rail to rail hits and other unique lines. Lastly across from that was a corrugated pipe with 2 different rails on either side of it for several different types of transfers.

Ryan Jones slaying the split pipe

        After the huge success with the CWPO, the gang decided to use the same head to head, best 2 lines format for Popsicle Jam. There was a qualifying round of heats that got us to the head to head 16. Of course there were some super heavy heats since it was all drawn out of a hat for seeding. One heat included young gun Tyler Sommer against Quest ATX and Slingshot riders Ryan Jones and Corey Miller. This could of definitely been a final with all of the insane riding going down in this heat. Corey and Ryan adapted best to the new course and advanced to the head to head top 16. The entire bracket was posted up on a big piece of plywood right on the dock so that the riders and the crowd could follow the madness all the way through the entire event. What made it even better was it was all broken down using nicknames.

Corey Miller tweakin’

         Highlights from the round of 16 included a heavy head to head matchup that featured the youngest competitor, Parker Swope. Parker actually landed the best trick off of the kicker to landing ramp, which was a switch mute mobe. At only 13 years old, Parker has a ton of talent and will be a name you will see plenty more of.

         As the day went on, the riding got better and better. The sun started to drop and that meant it was time for the semi finals and finals. The semi finals included a battle between last year’s winner Thomas Elwood and Reagan Hills. Thomas dropped a backside 720 off of the landing ramp, a backside 450 to backlip on the pipe to pipe safety and got super tech on the rest of the features to lock in a 3rd place finish. That meant that Conrad McIntosh and Jb O’Neill went head to head in the super final for first place. Conrad was on point all day long as he pulled off a toeside backside 720 that was linked into a frontside 50/50 to 270 switch backlip rail to rail on the triple rail section. Jb gave it his best, but Conrad was able to stand up and lock in first place which meant winning some cash and killer prizes and securing his first ever professional victory.

Round ’em up

         The 2018 Quest ATX Popsicle Jam was a major hit and the gang is already looking forward to next years which will follow the trend of getting bigger and better. The entire crew and the event itself would not be possible without the help of Slingshot wakeboards, Liquid Force Wake, South Austin Marine, Goodpop, STZ, Quest ATX, TPBYZ, and of course Alliance Wake Magazine! Thanks for all the help guys and see you next year!

By: Tom Fooshee

Ryan Jones getting crailed

Men’s Winners

Women’s Winners

Did someone say Magnum??