Recently a new event has announced itself, scheduled to take place at the same location and on the same date as was formerly reserved on the blade calendar for the Bitter Cold Showdown. With many BCSD regulars convinced the contest was due for a venue change, and many hearts broken in the wake of BCSD’s expiration, ONE caught up with the organizers of the Motor Town Classic to find out why it’s time for a new beginning.

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Why don’t you start off by telling us who you are, and who is all involved?
I’m James Fisher — I’m just a person who loves blading, and I’m working with my friends Sean Quinn, Noah Zipser and George Leichtweis on the Motor Town Classic.

What is your goal with this event, are you simply trying to replace BCSD, or create something new?
Our goal is to provide a platform for the industry and the people involved in it to showcase everything we have to offer, to help strengthen and build the blade community and industry as a whole. By no means are we trying to replace BCSD, this is a brand new contest/trade show that just happens to be at the same time and location as BCSD was for the past five years. On a side note, we are already working on major changes that will be done to the park. So the location may be the same but the layout won’t be.

Considering the size and scale that BCSD was, you have quite the name to live up to. Do you think you will be able to create an event as long standing as that?
Yes, BCSD was an amazing, large-scale event for blading and we know there will be a constant direct comparison to it. After all with the same location and date, who wouldn’t make that comparison. But I really do believe that we will create something as long standing as BCSD. Before BCSD in Detroit we had Motor City Shakedown. Both those events were a huge success, so it puts a lot of pressure on us but by no means do we plan to back down.

Why continue to hold the event in February?
The date just makes sense. It’s a cheap travel date and it’s something most of us are familiar with.

Are there any other things that will be added to the event such as music, raffles, or other things for those not competing to participate in?
We are planning on doing a table raffle at the trade show, and depending on scheduling we could potentially have some guys from the Bruiser Brigade (Danny Brown’s crew) do something — if we have enough time in between everything else that will be going on and they are not on tour. Also, we are going to let the public vote in a new alteration to the park. We plan on narrowing it down to three or four things, then have bladers vote via our Facebook page.

What preventative measures are you taking to ensure that the “one more try” crowd mentality does not over shadow your event?
As far as the potential for feeding into the “one more try” for a trick, we don’t plan on doing it. One thing we have always felt about other big contests was they don’t seem to allow you to do anything after because they let out so late. With one exception being The Blading Cup. We are already trying different time trials at Modern Skate Park with the local crew to try to figure out the best format to use for the different divisions.

Is there anything else that we should know or that you would like to inform people of about this event?
What we want everyone to know is that we are trying to make this big, so please spread the word. “Like” the Facebook page. Visit the website and share with everyone that has any interest in blading. The skatepark will look a lot different than it has in the past. We are going to be doing a ton of alterations and we don’t mean just a huge sub box or something to that effect. Also, we really want to let people know this contest/trade show is all about fun, blading and helping our industry move forward. We really feel like we are in this for the right reasons and we hope everyone agrees. One last thing I’m sure everyone is wondering about how legit this contest will be is what we plan to hand out as prizes. Just to give a little insight to the dollar amount, we promise the pro contest alone will not fall short of $10,000… and you can hold us to that.

Motor Town Classic on Facebook