The Motor City Madman

Many companies (and an equally large amount of “talent representatives”) would have you believe that the health and well-being of the sport and culture of snowboarding depends on the Tomato’s successful charge towards his birthright: X Games and Olympic gold. To be honest the future of snowboarding hinges more on things like US unemployment figures and the state of the Japanese Yen in the carry trade than it does on who wins the tube event up in BC this February. Regardless, the niche that has always been halfpipe snowboarding has needed some classing up for a good many years (Giacomo Krater in suit made of camo netting and turkey decoys; Kass, his censored sign-toting entourage, and the closest thing the “sport” has had to Shaun Palmer in a long time are two distant memories…)

On Wednesday, January 7, 2010, a collective sigh of relief was breathed as Danny Davis, ironically claiming Detroit, Michigan as his hometown, won the Mammoth Grand Prix in fine style, shocking many a Shaun White fan in the process. And despite the fact that the contemporary scoring paradigm only “lets” him do one straight air per run, Danny continues to do this whole dance in a much more “My Way” manner than all the rest. One can only hope that coming up on the radar in this manner won’t cause him to change his ways. You can almost hear his agent having an internal debate over whether or not he should shave his beard and cut his hair.

A wise man long ago established the formula for contest success:

Grease the wheels.
Up the ante.
Stoke the crowd.

At Mammoth Danny did those things and one more: landing his go-for-broke runs meant he finally and successfully played the numbers game that snowboard judging long-ago forced on what was once a creative and interpretive sport. That he “beat” Shaun White in the process is possibly the icing, possibly the cake, and possibly nothing more than a footnote when all is said and done. It might mean everything and it might mean nothing at all.

While Vancouver is not quite Danny’s to lose, he has certainly served notice (as Kevin Pearce and a very small handful of others had done in the past) that the event is NOT the contest for second place that the mainstream media would have/want/need you to believe it is. On a day when Shaun White rode as well as he ever has, when he went huge and did combos hitherto unheard of less than a year ago…he got beat. That’s a fact will weigh more heavily on him than anyone else.

Whether or not all the hopefuls, dopefuls, and jocks will be anything more than just field fillers and lower podium warmers in The Egg’s 2010 wet dream domination plan come February remains to be seen. But, he cannot write off the drug-free edge that an Olympic year tends to hone in people like Danny Davis. The past few seasons have seen Shaun dominating the competition thanks in great part to the competition being its own collective worst enemy, which, in a world of recreational drug test, simply isn’t the case for the current field of contenders.

With riders like Danny having nothing to lose (some would say that it doesn’t even matter now who wins the gold, White’s previously gleaming armor has now been shown to have many a mortal chink in it) The Egg must now think hard about his legacy, his sponsors, and the well-being of the lifestyle to which his family has now become accustomed. Perhaps he should go the reality TV route? A talkshow? His own board company? It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that snowboarding’s got the closest thing to a Jeff Brushie that it’s seen in years. He’s from the home of Iggy Pop and the MC5, dresses like a bum, and shills frozen pizza rolls in his spare time. His name is Danny Davis, and he has finally and officially arrived.

It's not easy bein' green...

Have so far only found one other source reporting this and only one or two people in the comments have even got the facts close to right, but Nicolas Müller, he of multiple Rider of the Year awards, the star-crossed and wittily–but disingenuously–named Green Mountain Project, and lines boosted straight from decade-old Salasnek video parts, has decided against the lifer/sponsor path that his friend and mentor, Terje Håkonsen, chose so long ago. His destination is of course the only logical company for any rider hoping to clean up snowboarding and the planet, that bastion of responsibility and environmental stewardship...Nike.

Truth be told, if anyone deserves to cash in/out and grab his share of the Beaverton bucks, it's Nico. He's come a long way from being one of many Euro stepchildren, all the way to a position of fame and respect, loved by the public and his peers equally. Though it's still a bit vague as to what his future plans are (there was a Nicolas-focused biopic movie treatment being floated around to his sponsors last year...) what's clear is that the gulf between his interests and those of Burton's (and specifically, if rumors are true, Burton's murketing department) had widened to an uncrossable distance. One recent tale has him calling a higher-up on the carpet in front of a group of other Burtonites for lies and half-truths said senior person was spreading about certain sustainable issues.

Speculation continues on what brand of snowboard Nicolas will end up riding. Many wags in the Pacific northwest are hoping and mongering on about him taking up residence at Gnu or Lib Tech and given the presumed size of his Nike paycheck he can probably afford to gift himself to either of the Mervin brands. Perhaps Nike will pull a Volcom (and Rockstar energy drink...) and start making shred sleds with swooshes on the bases? Or maybe, as some are suggesting, he'll add himself to the YES! roster. Jones Snowboards and a spot next to Blauvelt? An interesting new school backcountry superteam would certainly mix things up...

With Christian Rüf's recent departure, murmurs that one or two of their Next Big Thing™ Love-mounted youngsters are unhappy, and now, another of the companies true favorite sons flying from the nest, one has to wonder what the folks back in Burlington are thinking. Dreaming of the switch BS 180 melon from this perhaps? Probably not...