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Tony Gambino has a fever: a fever for snowboarding.
“If you’re a snowboarder, you kind of understand the passion that we have for the sport. It’s something that you live by,” he said.
“There’s such a drive in you that you know when the season comes around, and you realize you’re about to start snowboarding, you get so excited, and it’s unexplainable to people who don’t experience it.”
Gambino is a previous winner of the Brain Freeze Rail Jam, an invitational skiing and snowboarding competition scheduled for Friday evening. The fourth annual jam will be put on by NMX Sports at Sport Systems and is free to spectators.
“It’s the first rail jam of the season, and people are already just throwing down like crazy, and you know we’re pushing each other to try new tricks, and it’s just an all-around good time,” he said. “This event is a great spectator event. If you haven’t seen the stuff that some of these guys and myself are capable of, it’s super impressive.”
Sport Systems owner Duane Kinsley said the event usually attracts more than 1,000 people. Free shuttle rides from surrounding parking lots will be provided because of a lack of parking.
The event is part of the Avalanche Snow Show, and Kinsley said many of the regional ski resorts will sell discounted student tickets with a student ID and proof of enrollment. He said it gets New Mexico residents acquainted with the winter sports scene.
“People just driving up Montgomery are like ‘What is going on?’ It’s a huge, huge event,” he said.
Eddie Vargas has been the director of NMX Sports for three years and began volunteering there in 2005. Vargas said it’s important to encourage people to get exercise and to encourage youth to get involved in sports programs. He said Brain Freeze originally coincided with the annual ski swap held at New Mexico Expo. When NMX Sports got its start, the organization began to hold the show along with the swap and partnered with New Mexico’s ski areas.
Vargas said organizers look for a distinct style of athlete to participate in the invitational competition.
“We look for somebody that has a technical style, can go big, is consistent and isn’t going to be afraid to go all out on the first contest of the season,” he said. “That’s another big thing, too:
Being that it’s the first contest of the season and it’s not necessarily on a mountain, a lot of people shy away from it because they don’t want to get hurt and ruin their whole snowboard/ski season.”
Vargas said the New Mexico snowboarding community is a small group of people who have to take advantage of the state’s short winters, but have a lot of great mountains at their disposal.
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“It’s a laid-back crowd — a real organic community, I guess you could say — people transcend all generations, age groups, social realms, I guess, to come together,” he said. “You kind of forget it all when you’re up on the mountain; that’s the great equalizer.”
Brain Freeze Rail Jam
Friday, 6-9 p.m.
Sport Systems
6915 Montgomery Blvd. N.E.
Free
