Franke

Consistency was the name of the game at Saturday's Doritos Loud Air & Style contest at Northstar-at-Tahoe, part of the US Snowboard Grand Prix. The competition featured three hits — one right after the other — a rail-slide, a big air jump and a quarterpipe, with all three judged equally.

But with the visibility going from bad to ridiculous in the midst of a snowstorm, and with the big air landing too flat for forgiveness, the riders who posted the high scores were the ones who didn't go for broke on the middle mound and carried their speed into the quarterpipe finale.

The Loud Air women's competition was highlighted by Tara Dakides' clean backflip off the middle air to an amped backside off the quarterpipe. A few of the other ladies went for huge spins off the middle jump, a few went for quarterpipe inverts, but no one else could stick the three together to beat Dakides.

"The Loud Air women's competition was highlighted by Tara Dakides' clean backflip off the middle air to an amped backside off the quarterpipe...."

Some of the men also had problems handling all three aspects of this mini-slopestyle. The temptation to do some big air tricks on the medium-sized middle jump was tempered by the presence of the relatively short, flat landing. While most everyone pulled off some sort of sketchy landings off big spins, anyone who lost speed sucked in the quarterpipe and therefore on the scoreboard, too.

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Jason Borgstede put together the first truly flash run with a clean slide, a switch 900 off the middle ramp and sizable amplitude off the quarterpipe. US Snowboard Team member Ricky Bower also was completely solid top to bottom, throwing a mobius on the middle air to a backside rodeo.

	Borgstede

On the last run, Borgstede combined a backside 900 and a backside rodeo. But Nick Franke shut it all down with a switch backside rodeo into a stomped backflip.

Qualifying rounds for today's snowboardcross were won by Anton Pogue, Seth Wescott and Jason Brown for the men, Erin Simmons, Lori Grazier and Ellen Grimmes for the women. The competition starts at 11am.

— Chaco Mohler , MountainZone.com Correspondent