In the men's field, things didn't go as planned for Louie Vito in his first run even through he threw down two double corks right off the bat. But landing those tricks loosened him up for the second run.
"Last year I landed all my good runs in the second run," Vito said. "I like contests, I like the pressure and I like having to stick it right then and there. So in the second run I just had to put it down and I just wanted to come out strong in the first two hits because I knew it was going to get slower as I went down."
The high flier from Ohio came out charging with a frontside double cork 1080 to a cab double cork 1080 to a crippler to a Michalchuk to a frontside 1080 to a cab 720. It was the sickest run of the contest, and he threw away his first-run score of 61.00 and catapulted into a dominating lead with a score of 90.25, more than 15 points higher than anyone else. His score held on throughout the rest of the finals, and the Nike 6.0 rider took home the win.
"Maybe I just chuck it harder. I'm smaller going harder, maybe. I don't know," Vito said, struggling to come up with an explanation for his astonishing performance.
"I'm just happy I landed," he said. "I'm super pumped. It's nice to get a win at Dew Tour."
It was the second time in eight days Vito won a major contest on a powdery pipe. He claimed the U.S. Halfpipe Grand Prix last week at Copper Mountain, on a similarly snowy day.
"Yeah, it was kind of like at Copper - I'm just real confident in my tricks and we have a great wax tech with the U.S. Snowboard Team," he said.
Vito's next competition will be in mid January at the second stop of the Winter Dew Tour in Killington, Vermont.
Louie Vito loves to come from behind and land his tricks when it counts. And that's exactly what he did when he threw back-to-back double corks into his run and jumped from fourth-place to take the win.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
1. Louie Vito, 90.25
2. Matt Ladley, 75.00
3. Greg Bretz, 73.75
4. JJ Thomas, 69.50
5. Christian Haller, 69.00
6. Trevor Jacob
7. Steve Fisher
8. Mason Aguirre
9. Luke Mitrani
10. Ikka-Eemeli Laari
11. Scotty Lago
12. Kazuhiro Kokubo
Watch a replay of the Dew Tour Finals, January 1st on MTV 2 at 1pm