Round two of the AST Dew Tour took us to Cleveland, OH... Home of the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame. Which acted as the backdrop for most of our contests that weekend. (INSERT PHOTO - Rocking out.JPG) They had set up the venue right on the bay of Lake. We used to have the Gravity Games in the same location and wind was always an issue so I knew coming into this event that would be dealing with the elements over the weekend.

            First up was dirt. The course was good, with cement mixed into the lips to avoid crumbling dirt like we had in Baltimore. It had a drop in rather than a roll in and a few hip jumps thrown in the mix to keep everything interesting. (INSERT PHOTO - Marcus Tooker superman.JPG) Thursday was qualifying, and, with the wind, the contest kept getting pushed back more and more, until it seemed as if the weather had finally had enough. It looked like a tidal wave of clouds in the sky was rolling out direction, and once it got close, it hit with a fury. The temperature dropped 10 degrees, the wind started howling at, what felt like, 40 miles per hour, and it started dumping rain on us. We all made a mad dash for the hotel but nobody arrived without being completely drenched. So that day was shot. Qualifying got rescheduled for the next morning, bright and early at 9 am. We got through that with no problems, and I went back to the hotel to rest before finals that evening.

            During Finals, all the riders agreed that we should ride in Stephen Murray, "Stay Strong" Shirts just to let him know that we are all thinking about him. It was pretty amazing seeing everyone come together like that.

            Finals went off without a hitch and I ended up grabbing the win for the second stop in a row. Pretty excited about that if you can imagine. It gives me a pretty hefty point lead going into the halfway mark of the series, so hopefully I can continue riding well.

            Next we have park. They scheduled park qualifying and finals all on Saturday, so with dirt qualifying and finals being the day before, I was pretty tired right from the get go. But I felt good and liked the course a lot, so that helped me get through it. I qualified 2nd behind Daniel Dhers and was really hoping to move up a spot to keep in the title race. I was sitting in 5th after the first stop so I definitely had room to improve.

            Finals this time around had a weird format that we had never tried before. It was kind of like a jam format, but once we got through with that, then there was a "SUPER FINAL", where the top six guys up to that point got another sixty second run to try to step up their score. But all that really meant was that we had to ride again after really killing ourselves to get to that point. At this point I'm really starting to fade from the long weekend, and would really love to just chill. But I gave it my best shot and ended up crashing a 720 barspin. I wasn't too upset though, I sent a 720 down the step down and pulled it. It scared the crap out of my, but there is no better feeling than pulling something off that scars you to death.

            So I ended up with 2nd place in Park behind Daniel Dehrs. And that puts me into 2nd place in the overall point standings so I'm pretty happy about that. Hopefully I can keep this pace up through the whole year.

Check out the photo section for a lot of behind the scenes photos from the weekend!