Anyone who was following our coverage of the Burton European Open (or anyone’s coverage of it for that matter) will have noticed that the commentators kept bangin’ on about a ‘Creative Use of Space Award’. The idea is this: Mini (renowned for making erm miniature cars) have stumped up a whole load of cash to give to the rider who makes the most creative use of a competition course at any of the Burton Open events. It’s a hell of a lot of cash – a cool $25,000 to be precise, so it’s well worth going for if you’re a rider.

The way they’ll decide who gets the cash is by public voting on the videos, via Facebook. OK, so it’s a big publicity coup for the car brand (and a great way of associating themselves with something ‘cool’ like snowboarding) but the comp is actually pretty rad in its own right, in that it aims to encourage the injection of a bit more creativity into what can often be a slightly stale competition scene. OK, so personally we’re not sure there are that many ways you can get innovative or do anything really different in a halfpipe, but on a slopestyle course we’re hoping that riders will experiment with different tricks and finding transitions where they shouldn’t be… that kind of thing.

Anyway, the videos from the Burton European Open nominees are up now on Mini’s Facebook Page, so you can head over there and get voting now. My personal favourite is the young Norwegian dude Sven Thorgren’s slopestyle run… how sick is that back rodeo method?