CI-Superpark 6--The Cutter's Cup

The Bombardier BR 2000 complete with fully loaded Terrain Master package is the closest thing to a combat tank civilians can fondle. With speed, maneuverability and surging power, the BR 2000 blazes over snow with an eerie apocalyptic sports car grace. It stops, pivots and changes direction on a dime, inches from utterly destroying anything in its path and under the feather-touch control of its operator.

In the right driver's hands, modern snow-grooming equipment has been transformed from clunky mogul-crushers, to precision masonry tools. Cruising into a tabletop jump at full bore, you'd swear that the beast would certainly level it upon contact. Instead, a gentle upswing barely and carefully shaves a half-inch off the lip. The machine drives more like a dune buggy than a bulldozer; they are like Japanese sci-fi gigantor robots with origami hands.

Snowboarding has had everything to do with the development of these machines. For decades, all that was required of the various Bombardiers, Piston Bully's, and assorted off-brands was to flatten the shit out of the slope. Then came snowboarding, with it's halfpipes, quarterpipes, various waves and whoop-de-dos.



Ten years of explaining and coaxing before ultimately giving up and shoveling has finally led to the development of these specialized beasts worthy of a Fox show all their own.

At the 2002 SNOWBOARDER Magazine Cutter's Cup, the latest addition to the annual Superpark effort, in Breckenridge, Colorado, a small fleet of fully loaded new groomers had been assembled by Bombardier and Pisten Bully company representatives. The Cutter's Cup promised to be unlike any contest before, in that this was the first-ever event where course builders competed, and the riders judged their handiwork.

Along with the equipment, arrived four teams of three park-builders (a rider/test pilot, driver, and designer) representing Whistler, Mammoth/June, Mountain High of Los Angeles, and the home squad of Breckenridge. With Breck's welding shop at each team's disposal for developing jib features, thirty hours of cat time, and nearly all the mountain's drought-year snowmaking dedicated to this course along the Peak 9 base chair, Superpark 2002 proved to be one of the most ambitious and impressive events in the history of snowboarding.

Conceived, executed and officiated by SNOWBOARDER editor Mark Sullivan, everyone at first was convinced it was a simple scam to drive his new truck and sled combo to Colorado, rally around, and buy bottles of Padron at the bar. While all of this was accomplished, what also went down was the biggest step forward in terrain development since the original Super-session.

The first Superpipe was put on by SNOWBOARDER and another Sullivan - photographer Sean - ten years earlier on Blackcomb's Horstman Glacier at the Camp of Champions. With breakout performances by Jamie Lynn, Jeff Brushie, Kevin Young and Marc Morrisett - as well as the addition of rails and boxes - this first event has long stood as the most significant one.

This year's Cutter's Cup, however, with its unique format, all-star crew and DIY attitude, took it to the next phase ten years later.

The resulting Fantasy Island Zone far outshone anything before with curved boxes, rainbow step-down rails, gap jumps over chasms and treacherous snowplow blades: three-quarters of a mile of perfect transitions. For three days, Breckenridge was taken over and transformed into a Del Mar/Upland/Burnside Valhalla.

With catering and sleds from Breck's mountain staff, tunes from Denver's DJ Majai and support from The Liquor Barn, Boost Mobile, PBR and Marlboro, Super 6 came to life as a full-fledged private gangsta party and set a new bar, and a new bar tab.

Although the competition was amongst the cutters, all parties agreed snowboarding itself won by showing ski areas still reluctant to build a park, what can be done with only three guys and thirty hours of cat time. The riders, for their part, provided the aerial show with top-performer Travis Rice taking the crown along with standout shreds by Andrew Crawford, Abe Teter, Erik Leines, and Kyle Clancy.

At event's end, the hometown Breck team took the tequila-filled Cutter's Cup; but the efforts of each team quantum leapt all of snowboarding forward in a few short days. Through this event, the unsung hero of snowboarding's radical present was finally celebrated: the park builder.




Praise he who arises at dawn to destroy death cookies, kinked trannies, and busted lips. Oh great smoother of in-runs and provider of steep landings...All hail The Cutters....

For complete story, photos, and interviews from the Cutter's Cup and Superpark 6, check out Issue 15.3 of SNOWBOARDER Magazine.