By Justice Feelgood Marshall, Last updated Fri Aug 13 2010 11:43am

PORTLAND, OR -- Four of the top teams in modern derby clash over the three-day, triple-doubleheader Hometown Throwdown event hosted by Portland's Rose City Rollers from Friday August 13 to Sunday, August 15 -- #2 Gotham, #6 Rose City, #7 Rat City and #14 Bay Area.

Friday's action finds Bay Area facing Gotham at 7pm while Rose City takes on Rat City at 8:30; Saturday is Bay Area against Rat City at 6pm and Rose City vs Gotham at 7:30, and the weekend concludes with early-afternoon action on Sunday as Gotham goes up against Rat City at 1pm and Rose City plays Bay Area at 2:30.

These six games have plenty of angles -- Gotham will find out if they can enjoy the same dominating success against the Western Region as they have against the East and North Central this year, Rat City and Rose City will clash in a preview of a first-round Western Regional playoff match, and Bay Area, currently ranked #6 in the Western Region, can prove themselves a credible threat for a top-three finish in the region if they can pull off a win.

Full live coverage of the Hometown Throwdown is graciously provided courtesy of the Rose City Rollers and Blaze Streaming Media. Coverage starts at 7pm Pacific (10pm Eastern) on Friday, August 13.

Gotham

Gotham is the only team that comes into the weekend undefeated in 2010. They've built up a 4-0 record featuring a number of blowouts over highly regarded teams -- 126 points over #8 Charm City, 141 points over #10 Windy City, 82 points over #11 Boston and 165 points over #13 Madison. With close losses to only #4 Philly and #1 Oly in the last three years, they're a very intimidating 23-2 since October 2007.

While the Gotham core has changed little over the year and a half since their undefeated 2008 championship season, they've added a few more pieces in 2010 -- Rat City transfer Swede Hurt has been worked into a jammer rotation that includes a couple of superstars in Bonnie Thunders and Suzy Hotrod, along with Carmen Monoxide and Beatrix Slaughter. Steel Magnolia, B. Zerk and Haulin' Cass round out the first-year crew. Notorious blocker Beyonslay, though, is indefinitely off the table after suffering a broken fibula against Boston in late June.

It's Gotham's first trip to the West Coast since that 2008 championship (also hosted by Portland, though in a different venue). Somewhat surprisingly, given the lengthy history of all four teams, Gotham has never faced Rat City or Bay Area; they did face Rose City way back in October 2007, winning 129-86 and launching their then-record 18-game winning streak.

00 Ana Bollocks // 2 Donna Matrix // 10 Kandy Kakes // 12 Carmen Monoxide // 31 Hela Skelter // 42 Beatrix Slaughter // 46 Swede Hurt // 55 Suzy Hotrod // 61 Steel Magnolia // 80 Ginger Snap // 100 B. Zerk // 104 Haulin Cass // 141 Hard Anya // 153 OMG WTF // 201 Sweet Sherry Pie // 241 Fisti Cuffs // 340 Bonnie Thunders // 404 Hyper Lynx // 500 Papierschnitt // 8212 Em Dash

Rose City

Rose City has been steadily positioning themselves as one of the most dangerous teams in the most dangerous region in derby. This year, their 6-2 record is only marred by a very narrow loss to 2009 champions Oly (157-149) and to 2009's fourth-place team Rocky Mountain (127-96). They're the only team in this event to have previously played all of the participating teams, and hold a 0-1 all time record against Gotham, a 2-2 record against Bay Area, and a 2-0 record in sanctioned action against Rat City.

Most recently, Rose City played a remarkably low-scoring bout against Boston at June's ECE event; Boston held a surprising 53-23 lead at halftime and looked like they were on their way to a big upset, but Rose City's second-half adjustments were aces and the second half went 64-8 to Rose City, leaving them with a 87-61 victory.

The Boston second half was an excellent showcase for the Rose City pack work -- while some teams can match it, there's no team in derby that is better at cohesive play than Rose City when they're totally on. They seem to have slightly more trouble clicking on the road than at home -- going back to 2009, they've gone 5-1 at home (with the loss to Rocky Mountain) while going 6-4 on the road -- but that'll be working for them rather than against them this weekend.

Axl Blows 50 // Blood Clottia 2U // Cadillac V8 // Firecrotch 16 // Heidi-Go-Seek 210 // Honey Hellfire 72 // JK Rolling 93 // Layla Smackdown 55 // Mel Mangles 5 // Mick U Cry 53 // Mobi-wan Kenobi 444 // Napalm Beth 74 // Rhea DeRange 357 // Scrappy Go Lucky 594 // Scratcher in the Eye 243 // Shove Me Tender 51 // Smack Ya Sideways 140 // Soulfearic Acid 20 // Sully Skullkicker 8 // Wreck Deckard 23

Rat City

It's been an up-and-down year for the crew from Seattle. They currently stand at 4-3 on 2010 with a couple of narrow wins over national powerhouses #4 Philly and #9 Texas, along with solid defeats of #8 Charm City and #13 Madison, but their three losses have all been to Western Region rivals Denver, Rocky Mountain and Rose City. This weekend provides a huge opportunity for Rat City to get revenge on Rose City while simultaneously gaining momentum for October's Western Region playoffs -- Rose City and Rat City will face each other in the first round of that tournament, with the loser immediately eliminated from contention for November's WFTDA championship tournament.

Rat City's roster has been fairly stable for most of this year, built around double-threats Carmen Getsome and Kamikaze Kim with support from blocking powerhouse Anya Heels and rapidly developing jammer Jalapeno Business; longtime vets Juliet Bravo and Valtron are also able to play both jammer and blocker. Well-traveled blocker Ivana Clobber (ex-Boston & Kansas City) makes her debut as a Rat City all-star this weekend.

00 Kamikaze Kim // 5 Ann R. Kissed // 6 Anya Heels // 9 Sirius Mischief // 12 Carmen Getsome // 13 Kitty Kamikaze // 15 Mona Agony // 17 Ima Handful // 18 X-Khan // 21 Wile E. Peyote // 22 Jalapeno Business // 31 ReAnimateHer // 73 Primp Daddy // 76 Juliet Bravo // 89 Ivana Clobber // 247 Hard Cora // 615 sHedonist // 711 Rebel Belle // 3000 Valtron 3000

Bay Area

Though they've historically been a perennial threat to advance to WFTDA's national championship tournaments, the golden girls from San Francisco had an extremely rocky start to their 2010 season when they attended the February Wild West Showdown event while missing multiple key members. There, they got severely pounded by #3 Rocky Mountain (195-17) and #6 Rose City (154-27). An impressive showing against non-WFTDA #15 San Diego in June showed they'd righted their ship a bit, but they're still having trouble with the top 10, as #4 Philly soundly defeated them 203-99 in BADG's most recent bout.

Though Bay Area hasn't faced Gotham before, both of their bouts with the Pacific Northwest teams will be serious grudge matches that reach back multiple years into modern derby's history. Bay Area was bounced from last year's Western Regional in a 12-point first-round loss to Rat City, who came back at the very end to steal what looked like it was going to be a BADG win. In 2008, they played a famously contentious bout in Seattle that saw Rat City pulling out an even more narrow 93-88 win. In three meetings, Bay Area has been unable to knock off RCRG.

Things are arguably even more intense with Rose City -- they played an early-morning drag-out battle at the 2008 Western Regionals that resulted in Bay Area eliminating Rose City from contention for the Nationals tournament Rose hosted that year, 120-95. In 2009, Rose City got revenge by a similar margin, 138-120. Added to a 111-74 win for Bay Area earlier in 2008 and the Rose City rout at Wild West Showdown, the all-time series between the two teams stands at 2 wins for each.

000 Demanda Riot // 0hh Slaybia Majora // 1 Liza Machete // 4 Lusty Malice // 7 Friskie Meow // 16 BooYaYa! // 26 Chantilly Mace // 32 Nock Nock // 73 Frank n Hurter // 101 Astronaughty // 170c Sugar Pusher // 333 Burlybot // 360 Trixie Pixie // 500 Ivy Profane // 666 Aunti Christ // 777 Jane Hammer // 888 Brawllen Angel // 1491 Windigo Jones // 1618 Velveteen Savage // 1619 Belle Right Hooks