Brandon Biebel
2nd Place Manny Mania 2007

I don’t really look at you as a contest skater so I wanted to see what appealed to you about it?
It’s kind of like a contest but not really. There were four people skating at the same time, just having fun, skating some cool shit. There was a lot of money involved but it didn’t feel like a contest to me.

Tell me about the rough time you had getting out to NYC.
Yeah, I was just on a Lakai filming trip in Barcelona where I had a crazy flight back to Sacramento with three different stops and long layovers. Then the day after I got back to Sac I flew to New York but I had a layover in Long Beach and that flight got delayed for two hours, then I finally get to the hotel in Manhattan and the credit card wasn’t laid down so I thought I was gonna have to pay out the pocket and everything got scrambled up for a second but everything got sorted out real nice and I’m glad I went out there. It was a lot of fun and I got to see a lot of people that I would never really get to see.

Who were you stoked on?
I liked everybody but I really liked watching Dennis Busenitz skate. He was unbelievable. Ronnie Creager too. There were so many good people that I enjoyed watching just as much as I enjoyed skating. Every minute somebody was landing something dope all day.

Since Brezinski designed the set up were you thinking he was going to win it all?
Honestly, he’s super good at what he does and I knew he was going to do a bunch of crazy stuff but I knew Ronnie Creager was going to win before I even got on the plane to New York. Once I heard he was going, I knew he was going to win. He’s been doing so many dope manuals for so long; he’s got that shit easy now.

You won $6,000. What are you going to do with the prize money?
Nothing major, I’m just saving it. I didn’t buy anything out of the ordinary. I was going to get myself a nice dinner after I won but not even. I ended up just going to a deli and getting a normal, little sandwich. But I was definitely psyched that I ended up with six Gs somehow.