Brian Howard (preceding page) commits to a backside nosegrind revert. Clockwise from
top left: Not a frontside air, but a 360 indy by Bucky Lasek. Neal Hendrix prepares for
board-braking rail contact. Remy Stratton drives with his back foot during a one-footed
ollie off the far wall. The only veteran to make the cut, Chris Miller (sequence) teeters a
lapped frontside noseblunt slide.
AIRWOLK
EXTINETY
AIRWALK
al.
Frazier. He waited patiently on the
extension for his turn. When his name
was called something deep down
inside him exploded, as if he was pos-
sessed. From the fire in his eye you
could tell he was in another world. He
skates fast and furious, read this list
and dream: 360' varial noseslap fakie.
half-Cab varial noseslap fakie, slob
varial revert, fakie noseblunt tailgrab-
to-tail, Cab-pivot disaster revert.
frontside ollie nosegrinds, one-footed
tailgrabs, huge tailgrabs-to-fakie and
stalefish tailbone to fakie. Every air he
did was boned or tweaked to the max
and he skated all day long in the heat.
If the screams and shouts from the
crowd had any impact on the judging.
Frazier would have won, Instead, he
got sixth.
The hair and the style, it had to be
Chris Livingston. His first wall trick was
a double kickflip indy. After that he
would bust one-footed tailgrabs, big
body jars, body varials, frontside airs to
rail, 360' indys and alley-oop nosegrind
lipslides. All of that made him the low-
est guy on the paycheck list. Imagine
all the traveling, hotels, bullshit and
putting your life on the line for a hun-
dred bucks. He got fifth and loved it.
The only veteran to make the finals
was Chris Miller. His stylish attack of
this Masonite mushpit left you thinking
that maybe it was a fast ramp. Wrong.
Miller can pump speed and keep it like
no other. He gave it enough gas to
coast through his patented airlines.
Mutes, indys, and the biggest air of the
contest-frontside, were all Miller's.
While spicing it up with backside
bluntslides, stalled frontside nose
bluntslides, a 540', alley-oop lipslide
frontside Smith and backside ollie to
frontside Smiths. If this is any indica-
tion of what he is all about, Chris will
be dominating vert walls for a long time
to come. At this juncture he earned a
sound fourth
Maybe it was his mug on the cover.
or maybe it was thinking about Jim
Gray killing him for staying at the
Hiton, anyway Remy Stratton was full
bore. Wearing his Channel 1 wife-beat-
er spaghetti-T, Remy qualified first by
powering though the ramp at a zillion
miles per hour and didn't go to fakie
once until the finals. Alley-oop frontside
airs-12 feet across, lipslide Smithson
the E, an unbelievable no-footedolle,
seatbelts, fingerflip lein to rails.
frontside sliders, one-footed nosegrind
disasters, air to fakies, fakie to grind
shove-it disasters, backside Smiths
(hand down) for Jimmy Arigghi, and a
bionic stinkbug slob air. All that, for
only a third placing, and he still has
rails on his board.
Neal Hendrix tore shit up. He started
off his run with a fully committed, make
or break, four-foot backside air to rail
revert that had the crowd laughing from
the pain. But believe me, he didn't stop
there: backside 5-0 reverts, slob vari-
als, 360 indys, 360° varial to fakie,
backside lipslides, eggplants to tail and
even an invert noseslap fakie. Neal
was born to skate ramps and is more
than comfortable on them. His disas
ters broke three boards going into the
finals, so you can imagine how hard he
slapped it to rail on his way to second.
In practice Bucky Lasek looked like
he was in for a long day. He couldn't
seem to find what tricks he wanted to
do and what tricks not to do. After fight-
ing his way into the finals, he reached
deep inside himself and pulled out all
the stops. Frontside noseblunts to tail-
slap, backside noseblunts, method to
fakies, bent half-Cab mutes, 360"
indys, blindside fakie frontside nose-
grinds, chink-chinks, half-Cab noses-
lide reverts and ollie blunts. After bail-
ing them a ton in practice, he stuck two
backside late shove-its in the finals and
the crowd went into convulsions. Bucky
took it down and was all alone in the
winners circle.
I had been swimming, eating sludgy
food, baking my brain and standing
around looking at everyone long
enough to know it was time to spilt.
Word was that post contest dry pool.
session was happening but hell, that is
a different story entirely. -Jake Phelps