Left to Right: Pete Thompson pops one out of Reggie Barnes' backyard ramp. Wreck-
er Nile Zacherle assaults the wall at Hickom A.F.B. on Oahu. No bones about it,
Chris Parker rips the Dust Bowl at Castle Park in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Hawaii
BREEDING GROUNDS
Turf in Wisconsin, back down to Atlanta.
for the amateur Eastern Regionals, then
over to Daytona's Stone Edge facility for
some relaxation. "This park's rad,"
exclaimed Mike, "It's a good vert ramp
with lot's of flat bottom."
ike let his skating say the
rest as he tweaked mutes,
didn't know anything about this until it
was built. Now every time I'm not working.
I skate here."
The driving force and the main man
behind Eastern Vert (park, mag and
team) is BK (Keith) Willard who also
holds down a career as a copilot for US
Air. He described the trials and tribula-
slobs and frontside fastplants tions of putting a park project together. "I
all over the vert. Jason Logan is a local
who has hung at the park since the day it
opened. Like many of the younger and
less-experienced crew, he loves the four-
cornered bowl and the 6-1/2 mini-ramp
with spine that's situated right next to it. "I
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started looking around for space and it
took us forever. We had found a couple of
good buildings but as soon as they found
out we wanted to have skateboards they
said, 'No, get away, not even close'. Then
a guy here actually got in touch with me
and said he knew what I was trying to do
and he could help. I figured I could have
this warehouse built and lease it with an
option to buy cheaper than renting a
space. We actually built the building
around the design of the ramps and the
back wall is moveable so we can
expand."
P
ark powerhouse, Sean Jones
skates like a burly veteran at the
age of 19 and helped design the
park. His bottom line was, "We had to
have a vert ramp. Both BK and Sean
summed up the Eastern intrigue. "Out
here, our idea of a good contest is one
that you can just get together with a
bunch of people you've never skated with
and session," said Sean. BK added, "A lot
of Eastern kids who have gone to Califor
nia have been met with a closed attitude
whereas on the East Coast the welcome
mat is usually thrown out with the words.
'Skate our ramps, eat our food, the more
the merrier."
Reggie Barnes is one of the few top pro
freestyle skaters who also rips the vertical
as well as his own backyard mini. Reg
resides in Raleigh where his business is,
but prefers to call the coastal town of
Wrightsville Beach home. It's also where
the surf is, when it breaks, and nearby
Carolina Beach happens to be home to a
new indoor park called the Ramp House.
We were on the road immediately when
we heard the Ramp House had just
opened their latest addition, a kidney pool
made of plywood. Once at the Ramp
House we found the pool a sight to
behold-two 180° carveable corners con-
nected by another small bowl and a hip.
The deep end bowl was ringed with pool
coping which stops at the hip where PVC
pipe takes over and escalators down and
around the shallow end bowl.
ven though conditions inside
and outside the park were
unbearably hot and chokingly
humid we all took to the wooden pool for
a raging session. The Dogtown team van
had just arrived in the middle of a cross-
country tour so the session was spiked
with the addition of J.J. Rogers, Karma
Tsocheff, John Schultes and Justin
Girard. The kidney pool was a labor of
love built by local surf/skater Jim Reese
that could set a new standard for ramp
construction. Local ripper Chet Childress
showed everybody the lines which con-
sisted of endless carving capability and
stand-up grinds on the hard, smooth cop-
ing. Bailey Webb, Miller Heritage, Rob
Scull, Brian and Thomas and the boys
that run a skater hostel called the Dog-
bowl in Wrightsville Beach dominated the
wooden kidney for hours while Reggie
and J.J. committed to frontside grinds on
top of a flat wall that jutted seven feet out
of the mini-spine ramp. The rest of the
park featured a compact street obstacle
area that was gyrateable and fun. Ramp
House proprietor Dolores Haner said she
got into the project at the urging of her
sons, Joel and Noah-beginning skaters
with no place to skate for miles. Dolores
said the biggest problem in opening the
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