Coastal Carnage Cacophony

The 2012 Coastal Carnage was hot and heavy in and out of the bowl. Gallery

Barnies, brodies, brews and babes are the first thing that come to mind when I think of the Orange Curtain (or the OC in layman's terms), but this past Sunday, Huntington Beach hosted the Converse Coastal Carnage contest, so I took a deep breath and went in head-first.

As far as contests go the Coastal Carnage is a sludge-fest of balls-to-the-wall, powerhouse, barn storming, rip-roaring skateboarding that harkens back to the days of "I don't give a f---, just get out of my way," type of contests.

Obviously, the man of the hour was Ben Raybourn, whom won first place and took home $20,000. Raybourn rolls to his own tune and raised the roof with nose grab 540s, fakie-to-fakie 540s, invert reverts and found every little nook and cranny to scrape his trucks against. Raybourn deserved every last penny of that 20K, and the judges and crowd unanimously agreed.

The best trick contest consisted of any trick on the Shark pillar or the over-vert clamshell and was an all-out free-for-all to any and all takers. Greyson Fletcher, Ben Raemers, Ben Hatchell, Robbie Russo, and everyone involved got their licks in and destroyed the pillar and clamshell. Curren Caples frontside flipped from the pillar into the clam, Kevin Kowalski frontside inverted on the pillar and came in over the gap and into the clam and Ben Hatchell blunt kickflip-to-fakie on the over-vert. But when it was all said and done, Aaron "Jaws" Homoki took home the best trick honors and $3,000 with a kicky melon bodyjar and a McTwist to boot.

All-in-all it was a splendid adventure to the beach -- I didn't get sunburnt, I didn't get cornered by a bunch of drunk meatheads, and I only sat in traffic for about four hours. See you next year.