photo: Kevin Rimes comes through the final turn en route to set a new course record.

Friday July 2nd 2010 (Goldendale, Washington) - Today kicked off the first qualifying runs for the Maryhill festival of speed. The wind was strong again making for an extremely fast course. Prior to the qualifiers, the buzz among racers was favoring Zak Maytum and Kevin Reimer as the ones to beat this year, and as we saw, they buzz was justified.

The qualifying took almost all of the day with more than 200 racers needing to do a run against the clock. Zen Shikaze was the first one to lay down a fast time and took over the first position at the start, it wasn't long though until Zak Maytum came down on his slalom setup edging him out of first place.

photo: Zak Maytum rides his slalom setup to a run that would put him in 2nd

When K-Rimes hit the track and came through the final corner you could tell he was moving fast, his time matched that feeling laying down a course record for a qualifying run which would hold up throughout the day.

If the tail wind manages to stay around for the next couple of days we will see some interesting first heats and some extremely exciting finals.

The qualifying results were:
1st- Kevin Reimer
2nd- Zak Maytum
3rd- Zen Shikaze
4th- Patrick Switzer

photo: Defending Maryhill Champion Patrick Switzer hauls through a turn allowing him to finish 4th place.

Stay tuned for more Skate[Slate] Maryhill Festival of Speed coverage in the days ahead.