Tommy Czeschin

Who knew that 1998 US Open Halfpipe Champion Rob Kingwill can't throw a McTwist? More importantly, who cares? Already he stomps monster 900s, back-to-back inverts and amps out of the pipe on straight airs larger than gravity should allow. His stash of tricks was plenty big enough to win the first US Snowboard Grand Prix of the season at Mammoth, CA., last month, and he didn�t need no stinking McTwist to do it.

But the only thing that would make Kingwill happier than winning the $10,000 first-place prize in Sunday's second stop on the Grand Prix tour at Breckenridge is nailing a perfect McTwist in one of his two runs.

"If I can throw out a McTwist and do it right in the contest I'll go home happy. That will be reward enough," the Jackson, Wyoming native said. "It's been something that's frustrated me for ages because I don't do it right. This year, I want to do it right. It's such a rad trick and you can do it really high and it's super fun and I just do it wrong. If I could just do it right I feel like I'll have a lot more doors open up for me in my snowboarding."

"It definitely ups the ante with Ross [Powers] being here. That kid has won more contests than anybody..."— Rob Kingwill

On the eve of the Breck Grand Prix finals, the door appears wide open to Kingwill. He pre-qualified for the money round with his win at Mammoth and used his sunny Saturday afternoon to take a few practice runs, size up the competition and work on his emcee game from the announcer's booth at the base of the pipe, which is known locally as "Moby Dick," or the great white whale.

Seeded first and obviously among the favorites once the television cameras start rolling, it would seem that Kingwill could simply rely on his stock moves to fill out a deposit slip. But with a field including Todd Richards, Tommy Czeschin, Rahm Klampert and everybody's all-American, Ross Powers, Kingwill knows good and well he's got his work cut out for him.

"It definitely ups the ante with Ross being here. That kid has won more contests than anybody," Kingwill said. "He knows how to compete, he knows how to go big, and he won here at the Triple Crown last month. He knows how to ride this pipe and I'm stoked he's here. We all push each other and it's a serious contest."

	Ross Powers

Cut by Breck's raging new Super Pipe Dragon 2000, Moby Dick poses its own set of challenges even for top competitors at the Grand Prix. With 15-foot walls and a relatively flat slope, it takes clean lines and smooth transitions to air out the big flips and spins it will take to win Sunday. But that's exactly where Powers is at his best, appearing to ride in a different pipe from the remainder of the '89 competitors as he rocketed above the walls and qualified first with a perfect "10" score from the judges on amplitude today.

"I just kind of go for it. I�ve been feeling good with amplitude and feeling smooth on the wall, so I just keep going with it and pushing farther and farther," Powers said. "Last time here it took a frontside 9, a McTwist and a switch 7 to win — and good amplitude. Hopefully I�ll step it up a little from that. We'll see."

With a relatively short pipe limiting riders to five or six tricks, max, every move will be critical in competition. The general consensus is that a pair of inverts, a big spin and large straight airs between will be what it takes to win. That's unless you are 13-year-old Shaun White, who qualified 14th with a Skippy-smooth run showing that, yes, he is the future of snowboarding.

Everybody else will have to prove themselves Sunday.

— Scott Willoughby, MountainZone.com Correspondent