What started out as a fun way to get his buddies together at the beginning of the winter has turned in to one hell of a fundraiser. For the last six years Josh Dirksen has been putting on the Dirksen Derby at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon and donating the proceeds to Tyler Eklund. Tyler is a snowboarder who broke his neck training for nationals a few years back and is paralyzed from the neck down. After Tyler got hurt, Josh just figured that all of the proceeds would go to helping him. The Derby has raised more than $50,000 dollars so far and is just going to keep on going. There is no prize money or TV fame to be had at this contest. Just a good time and some laughs.

The positive vibe of the contest has attracted pros like Terje Haakonsen, Jake Blauvelt, Austin Smith and Scotty Wittlake to compete with 400 or so other entrants. You are not going to see that at the X Games, that’s for sure. The weekend consists of men, women, groms, older and wiser (over 50), and sit ski divisions all racing against the clock. Then it gets capped off with a splitboard division that sees racers split board up one course, put their boards back together and stash their poles and skins, before racing down the other course.

It may be a total cliche, but this is what snowboarding is all about.