36 THRASHER
miniature weeblo ramp, a mini connected
to a large mini with a sweet hip, a well-
to-do street course and a beauty of a
vert ramp. And yes indeed, the whole
place is fast and blue.
The am scene had some dry moments,
but there was definitely some feisty skat-
ing being thrown down. My favorite was
a guy named Brent Kronmueller. He 360
flipped to fakie and had all-around clean
fast runs. I think he got second place.
Other highlights from the early activities
were Gentry and TG on the mini, Julien's
backside lipslides over the channel of the
vert ramp and Kareem's
ollie off the large slant
ramp, over its platform,
over its railing and down
ten feet to the ground.
The pro street turnout
wasn't huge, but most of
the big guns were there.
A lot of shit went down,
I'll just tell you the things
that stuck in my head.
Ed Templeton heel-
flipped nice as his wife
cheered him on. Ed rules
frontside bluntslides.
Jason Lee went fat over
the pyramid with humon-
gous backside 180's, very
large backside 180' flips,
fakie 360' flips on the slant and cool man-
ual action. Dune tied for fifth with Jason,
catching pop shove-its higher than most,
switch frontside nosegrinds and just skat-
ing in that jazzy way that he does. Willy
Santos dialed in the course like Tony
Hawk's phone number. Vallely assaulted
everything in sight including the kinked-
out mega quarter-pipe with methods to
fakie higher than a haystack. Pat Duffy is
a great skater (duh), 360' flip noseslides,
nollie kickflips and attempts at backside
disaster reverts on the mega-pipe. I'm
sure he made it some time that weekend.
Ethan Fowler, for those who don't know,
is also a great skater. He charged with
speed, style and fat frontside kickflips.
Kareem Campbell made a vein pop in
my head. He rode with ruthless abandon
and unleashed some mind-boggling
feats: Half-Cab kickflips on the mega
pipe and backside 180' up and out of the
slant ramp! You had to see it to believe it.
Needless to say, Kareem won this one.
As the night went on, people started
getting crazy. Bill Weiss and Oscar
Jordan climbed atop the pro shop roof
like they were actually going to try to
ollie into the bowl. If Cardiel was there, it
would have been all over. But wait, who's
this? Jahmal Williams. Boardless backflip
off the roof into the middle of the bowl!!
He climbed up and did it again!!! What
the fuck was he thinking? This really
sparked things up,
including Sluggo, who
led the hungry pack
of spectators over to
the mini-ramp. He
was trying a ghastly
transfer from the mini
over the platform and
railing, then over a
gap and into the
large slant ramp of
the street course. It
almost seemed
impossible at first, but
when he cleared the
railing, I knew he was
going to do it.
Slamming hard on the
first one just fired the
Sluginator up even more, and he stuck
that shit only a few tries later. The night
got even rowdier with a melee at this
party involving Bo Turner, Scott Conklin,
Chris Gentry and some others. The end
result was Gentry getting his roof beat.
The next day was the vert, and I was
sorry to see the attendance so low. One
of the am contest stand-outs was Chany,
who is always smiling (and sick as fuck).
He came through with fat airs, switchflips
to fakie and carved-out 360' backside
ollies. There was this guy named John
Comer who was going ballistic all over
the ramp. Then I saw him pop off and
adjust his fake leg (his front leg even) and
I had even more respect for his skating.
Tweaked half-Cab indy nosebones and
frontside ollie tailgrab late tails were just
some of what he had (continued page 82)
Clockwise from opposite left: Nobody watches Max Schoof
fall out of the heavens on a boned backside allie. Ken Fillion
hoists while the drunks cheer him higher. Mr 360° kickflip,
Jason Lee, to fakie. No problem for Henry Sanchez on a
frontside 180 backwards 5-0 on the metal bar. Mike Vallely
pushed fifty times to go this high over the little hip. The vic-
for, Kareem Campbell, floats in front of the peanut gallery.
Note Ethan Fowler's anti-skate fashion frontside kickflip.
Steve Berra tastes the metal as Tim Gavin heelflips over him.