NICKS
Nicky Guerrero was born in
1968 with Filipino and Danish
blood running through his
veins Nicky began visiting
relatives in the States at a
young age, where he discov
ered the skateboard. "When I
was five or six years old," he
recalls, "my neighbor had a
plastic skateboard. I remember
standing up and going down
the sidewalk and the drive-
ways. My uncle Bob gave me
red plastic skateboard when I
was nine. I could ride that
thing pretty good. I took it
back to Denmark with me
where no one had ever seen a
skateboard before.
Credit Nicky with starting the "skateboard boom" in that small
country. Hopping back and forth across the Atlantic allowed him to
hone his skill at spots like Marina Skatepark which was three min-
utes by bike from his grandma's house. Nicky remembers, "I had
elbow pads on my knees because I was so small. I learned to do
frontside and backside kickturns. When I came back to Denmark
with all of the new equipment, they were still skating Tiger boards
with old OJ wheels. All they had was a quarter pipe that was maybe
twelve feet wide
in Amsterdam, one of the raging cities of Northern Europe. It's got a big
metal ramp that is so smooth, mini-ramps and a cool scene. I've been
going around to a lot of contests in Europe; this has been stoking me..
Tell me about your car accident.
It was terrible. We were driving up the 405 North freeway going from
Oceanside to Bod Boyle's house in Venice. Right before Los Angeles Air-
port all of the cars came to a stop in front of me and I was going maybe
60 or 65 m.ph. I slammed on my brake and weft to the emergency
lane, and the car started jumping and sliding. It slid to the left and the
right and I thought it was going to turn around in a 360 slide, but
instead it did a flip-over. It rolled over on the passenger side then we slid
at least 25 feet on the roof. It stayed on the roof when it stopped and
de an awful sound. I thought I was dead at that moment. I thought
other cars were going to hit us, but nothing happened. Traffic came to a
stop and I was in the middle of the freeway upside down. The cit was
smoking and I thought it was going to explode. We couldn't get out
because the doors were jammed. Me and Mark Fowily, a Danish street
skater, were in the car. All of the glass on his side smashed and he got a
lot of glass in his arm. If we did not have our seat belts on, we would
probably be dead today. Remember to buckle up, especially or the hee
way. I had just bought the Bar week before that, and one day before It"
happened, Randy Jansen told his that those cars flip over.
How did skating develop in Denmark when you were starting
When I got back from Amerion in 1979, they had a club called Herlev
We would skate every day on this quarterpipe. Later, as they got more
money, they got more ramps, They bought pre-fabricated ramps from
Swedish factories. They bought a U-shaped pipe, which was a halfpipe.
without flatbottom. Later, they got wmmp with flatbottom that they
called a Hollywood ramp because they had never seen that before they
saw this picture in the mag. That's hor tricks started. You could do
more tricks dicause for me do think before you got to the
Being a European skater, how did you develop your tricks?
Nicky quickly proved, with his skating, that he had all-star quali
ties. In the ensuing years he began tearing through the Europea
contest cireuit, winning most of the majors at least once. Nicky
became the focus of a lot of attention in Euro print and video medimex
ums. "I was skateboarding on this show like Danish Saturday Night
Live. Denmark at that time only had one TV channel and all five mil
Hon Danish people were sitting and watching it. I was skating this.
BMX ramp that didn't have any yert. I did a handplant varial and
did a Japan air on that ramp. These BMX guys hung up and they
slammed. Thats why skateboarding got more popular than BMX
bikes in Denmark
MoFo recently got together with Nicky to catch up on the latest
events in his life, including diafr-raising auto accident that brought
him within an inch of his life.
How's life been treating sou?
Life has been treating me well. Sometimes I think I was born under a
lucky star or something I got sponsored by Powell-Peralta, and my best
friend from Denmark is the European team leader with a big warehouse
I liked skateboarding so much that I went on vacations to Del Mar
and Skate City. Paramount had these contests and Rodney Mullen was
there and he won that freestyle contest. They had these snake runs and
it was gnarly. I could do inverts back then. Mostly the way I learned in
Europe was from magazines or something, or friends talking to me and
telling me how to do stuff. There were some guys in Denmark that were
really good, like Michael Destoppelar. He's so rad; he had skated for.
about fifteen years and he used to be the best in Denmark. He's still rip
ping. At the last European championships he won the highest air con
test with a one-footed lien air off the extension. He's Mister Frontside of
Europe. He and some other guys. Finn, they were ripping doing
frontside rock and rolls and stuff like I had never seen before. This was
probably 1982 or 1983, Sweden was way ahead back then They would
come to Denmark and take everyone out
P
COERRERO