The Delta flight from Detroit to Salt Lake was filled with people flying home from Red Bull Heavy Metal. Flights home after a snowboarding trip are always better when you see your friends on the same plane. Sometimes you get lucky and end up sitting next to one of them. I was sitting in row 24. Egan Wint and Sierra Forchheimer strolled on the plane. My favorite red and green haired duo. Egan’s seat was next to me. We were stoked. Egan was responding to all her DMS and texts that she has gotten in the last 12 hours congratulating her on her Red Bull Heavy Metal victory.  There were a lot of bold unreads on her screen... “So many people are looking at my story right now, it’s stressing me out.” Admittedly, Egan doesn't respond well to texts and was a bit overwhelmed. She was clocked in, getting back to all the nice people, and I asked her some questions about her Hart Plaza experience. 

When did you get invited to Red Bull Heavy Metal and decide to go? 
Egan: Last year it looked sick. I randomly saw Joe Sexton at the 9th and 9th skatepark in Salt Lake and they were talking about it. Joe asked if I would be down and I said fuck yeah I would.

Did you have an idea what the set up was? 
I knew it was at Hart Plaza in Detroit and have seen clips from there. Like Grace's back lip and creeper clips. I had an idea but it definitely was different than what I was expecting but also I had no idea of what to expect. 

Have you done a bigger event like this before? 
I’ve done nothing like this before. I did Be Somebody but that felt different. The Dustbox crew was announcing on a mega phone and everyone was sitting on their van.  At this one there were legit announcers, lights are in your eyes, hundreds of people trying to get a glimpse of you. And you look down at this kink rail. I’m not a contest kid. I guess I am now, but that's not what I do. The energy was crazy. I got so riled up. It was such a sick and different group of people. They are all my homies but we live in different places. 

What was your mindset going into it? 
Going into it I was pretty weary. After getting eyes on the course it looked big and I fell during practice and tweaked an existing injury. I just wanted to survive the day and make it out walking. And then we hit the wall first and that was so much fun. Pretty low impact and after that I was just like fuck I want to snowboard and do things I know I can ride away from.I just wanted to ride my board. And it went pretty well. 

Was there a moment where you were like, I could win this?
Once I did the 50 front 3 on the down bar, I was like, nice I made it on the podium but it was hard to tell because we couldn’t see other people drop in and hit the feature. We were all in line on the stairs watching it on the live steam. It was hard to compare yourself to others because we had no idea what people were doing. 
Then they called 2nd and 3rd and I was like damn I’ll get them next time but then they said something about green hair and I was like DAMN. I was behind all these people and they wouldn’t move. I was down some stairs and I was at people’s knee level and I was like excuse me. 

What were some hype moments for you from the other riders?
Watching Lo and Maggie hit the wall. If they hadn’t started trying the things they were trying I wouldn't have tried the fs invert. We were just building off each other's energy. I didn’t see this, but when Jaylen said she was going to nose press the down bar and that got me hyped. 

What are you going to do with the money? 
Video part money. I just paid for next winter.

What else are you doing this year?
Filming in the streets. Making my debut as a part time mid west local. 

Thank you Redbull/Grace for putting the event together and everyone that was there.

An hour and a half into the flight, Egan told me she finally responded to everyone and thanks everyone for the love and support.