The 2012 USA Nationals were held in Idaho at Kelly’s Whitewater Park. It is a new park built just over a year ago. I had never been there before, but wow, incredible. The whitewater is outstanding, while the actually park is amazing with grand stand style seating and beautiful grass and landscaping.

The main feature was so awesome, probably the best feature we have had all year, and the results proved it. It was another tight competition with all the best American’s competing, the likes of Jason Craig, Dane and Eric Jackson, Stephen Wright, Bryan Kirk, Clay Wright, Greg Parker, just to name a few.

You can tell it is a super tight competition when the leader from prelims (Dane) sets the highest score with a 1645 and then doesn’t make it into the top 5 for finals. Finals were Jason Craig, Stephen Wright, Eric Jackson, Clay Wright and myself. The scores were high and the field was strong to say the least.

I had a great first run with a 1460 point ride, my highest of the event and a leading score for sure. I felt good about my ride, though my score was quickly crushed by Jason’s 1600 and then again by Stephen’s with a record setting 1830 (the highest score ever in competition). I was then proudly sitting in third, only to get pushed back to forth by EJ’s 1480 point ride. I knew the only way to better my score was to have a flawless ride, nailing ever trick and moving fast. My next ride was going great until I went for a little too much air on my loop and landed on the backside of the wave.

I ended in 4^th place, which in nothing I ever want, but I was still proud of my 1460 point score and my friends for destroying my score and setting a new highest score ever recorded.