Mike McGill stretches for an inside rail channel plant during the heated second round of the Ramp Jam. Secyk Phot
not only does most of his training on ramps, in-
cluding his own backyard structure in San Jose,
but has skated at Joe's a few times. Adding to
this his contest record over the past four years
and a basic flair for radical moves makes
Caballero look almost unbeatable in this event.
His presence puts extra pressure on the rest of
the field of competitors.
One of the most electric skaters on the circuit
today is Mark Rogowski, today, however,
'Gator' couldn't get the current flowing prop-
erly and failed to stay on long enough to put
anything together. Alan Losi on the other hand
was out to have fun. He enjoyed a fine second
run in qualifying, receiving solid scores from
the judges.
When the names of the six 'jammers' were
announced nobody was surprised at the three
names topping the list: Caballero, McGill and
Tony Magnusson. The Lopes' girls, Beverly,
Salli and Tami, have become knowledgeable
observers of vertical skating in recent years and
called it accurately when they predicted these
three skaters as favorites.
"He gets the highest airs I've ever seen,"
said Beverly Lopes'of Steve's bionic floaters.
"Pruning backside airs," Tammi added, re-
ferring to Cab's branch brushing flights up into
the pine tree that hangs over one comer of the
ramp. (The branches were indeed 'pruned,"
with shears, the day before to allow for even
loftier heights).
The 4th, 5th and 6th place jam slots were
earned by Mike Smith, Rob Roskopp and Alan
Losi, repsectively. All three skaters put in a
solid routine when it counted and there was no
doubt that they would provide a challenge for
the top half of the order.
THE JAM
Everyone present at Joe's ramp this day was
curious about how the jam session format
would work in a contest situation. As soon as
these six skaters began dropping in, one after
the other, no pausing, no hesitations, every-
one's thirst for knowledge was quenched. It
was immediately evident that the caliber of
skating in this event would be above average.
Caballero, McGill and Magnusson immedi-
ately entered into an air war that would last
throughout both of the half hour sessions. Al-
though he couldn't manage quite the same
heights on his aerials, Rob Roskopp was not far
behind. His power and speed plus a wide as-
sortment of lip moves filled out his repertoire.
Both Mike Smith and Al Losi worked the
PVC coping lips of the ramp with authority,
slapping board slide re-entries and assorted
hang-up grinds and edgers' at will. Although
both skaters managed to establish air lines,
Losi with some hectic backside ollies and
Smith going front and backside, each would
need a lot more bionics to match the others run
for run.
The 20 foot wide ramp provided ample room
for the skaters to try just about anything they
desired. One area that became an immediate
focus of attention was the roll-in channel and
its three foot wide gap. All manner of aerials,
handplants, and grinds were being thrown
over, onto and into the opening. Caballero was
executing frontside channel plants and
backside boneless ones over the vacancy with
little effort. McGill threw twisting frontside
airs and inside rail plants as well as effortless
frontside ollies. Master of the giant air, Tony
Magnusson was popping lofty leiners andgiant
backsides. Roskopp was into pushing thrusters
and cross channel sweepers. Losi was throwing
air to tails while Smith was grinding off the
coping and into the opening.
It was becoming obvious towards the end of
the first half hour that this contest would favor
those skaters who had the endurance to go the
distance and the varying lines from run to run.
Mike McGill had a solid routine going in qual-
ifying but during the jam started to mix it up a
little. We asked him about it later: "I started try-
ing different angles, trying to do my tricks
everywhere on the ramp. Not just the same old
thing every run. I broke it all up. It seemed to
work for me. Just doing what comes."
After a one man freestyle symposium by Per
Welinder during the intermission between
rounds of jamming, the second half hour got
under way. It had already become evident that
Caballero, unless he got hurt or sketched heav-
ily, was on his way to victory. Unless the
others could pull together something more bio,
the best they could really hope for was second
place. Rob Roskopp was waiting to drop in as
Caballero pushed a backside air up and into the
pine tree, almost disappearing amongst the
greenery. "That's sick," uttered Rob with a
somewhat futile tone to his voice. "You'd have
to go over the tree to top that," added Tony
Magnusson, who was grabbing some fair size
aerials himself. "Stevie's pretty much far
beyond reach now for anybody in this session.
There's not much you can do now except shoot
for second."
You can't say that Tony's view is not a posi-
tive one because second behind Caballero at
this point would be skating pretty damn good.
It would be for second place that the real battle
in this contest was waged. McGill and Mag-
nusson at first looked like the only contenders.
During the second jam though, Roskopp began
coming on strong, thrusting higher and letting
it hang out a little more with each successive
run.
At the five minute warning buzzer it looked
very close, the contestants began using their
last resources of energy. Roskopp, coming off
a stalling Andrecht into a sweeper over the can-
yon, tried to stretch it a bit too far and took a
bad slam. With time enough for only one more
run, Rob knew he would have to come back
blazing.
Meanwhile, Steve Caballero actually skip-
ped a turn on the ramp at one point, sitting out
for a much needed breath. McGill and Magnus-
son on the other hand had to use every ounce of
energy they had left to try and unseat Cab from
the top spot. After Roskopp took one last
bionic run that had the crowd yelling and
screaming, Al Losi took what proved to be his
last, McGill dropped in with only about 45 sec-
onds left. He talked later about his strategy at
that point: "towards my last run I knew I had
less than a minute to go so I tried to use the
whole time so that Tony wouldn't get as much
of a run." He skated solidly but Tony would
have one more chance to match him. The 'can-
non' dropped in and powered an aerial on the
far side of the ramp, landed it and shot back
across the flat towards the channel wall, then
he blasted probably the highest air of the day.
A backside booster high above the channel as
time expired. Tony held on for all he was worth
and virtually made it, through the transition
anyway. By the time he reached the far side of
the ramp though, he was off balance and was
pitched off his board.
So that was it, the first of it's kind, ramp jam
format had been a success. Everyone was
blown away by the skating they had just wit-
nessed. The skaters themselves, although worn
to the bone, were pleased with their perfor-
mances.
When the final tallies came in from the
judges nobody was surprised at Steve Cabal-
lero's name being mentioned at the top of the
list. He blazed. Teammate McGill wrapped up
second place with his solid skating. The big
surprise was third place. Rob Roskopp had
barely edged out Tony Magnusson. Fifth went
to Losi and sixth Smith.
About this time, Lance Mountain stumbled
out of the house where he had been sleeping
through the finals. "Is Duane skating?" asked
Lance, still in a dreamlike trance.
Cash was awarded to the top six finalists and
everyone began to disperse from the Lopes"
property knowing that they had just witnessed
the state of the art in vertical skateboarding.
The biggest thanx would have to go out to Mr.
V Fausto Vitello for his innovative ideas and
superb planning of this event, the sponsors
whose help in getting their riders to the ramp
was appreciated and most of all Joe Lopes and
family for not only the ramp, but, their toler-
ance and cooperation. Without them, this con-
test would not have happened.
KT.
THRASHER
MEN
TRACKER
GULLWING
TRUCK
The bichien, Rob Roskepps' foot plant channel
rusters got higher and more dangerous as the
sessioning progressed. Photo: Matt Etheridge
27