The Vans/Hard Rock Cafe Triple Crown of
Skateboarding was sponsored by Vans, the Hard Rock
Cafe, and Dickies, among others. The funny part is, it
wasn't just plain Dickies that kicked down cash to
have their signs up, it was Dickies EXTREME. Think
about that one. You might as well have Charmin
EXTREME or Spam EXTREME. There's just some prod-
ucts that don't need to be extreme..
will squash all comers and eventually the elusive
Birdman himself. Witness the new European invasion!
9th: After taco-ing his knee in Tampa, Omar Hassan
has been playing catch-up at the last few events. At
Hard Rock, he rocketed into the finals with rehabili-
tating 5408s and soothing Madonnas to Smith.
8th: "Max Dufour" translated from French means
"Max of the four." This doesn't really mean anything.
seeing as he got 8th. Being a French-Canadian may be
6th: Darren "the Moose" Menditto stampeded across
the Masonite, pulling Moose twists, Moose plants, and
even the nollie Moose flip. Afterwards, he pawed at
the ground and rubbed his antlers against a tree. Sonja
fed him a lump of sugar.
5th: Chris Gentry. Ahh, yeah, time to get paid. Just
another day at work.
4th: Rune Glifberg's just fuckin' bad, dude. The ramp god
from Copenhagen smoked a cig on the deck before his last
run. "It gives me power," he said. Backside
tailgrab one-foots, Nolder grinds to tailslide,
and the kickflip backside lipslide all put him in
the top 5. Rune's the one, man.
THE VERT
GRAVEYARD
A note to the owner of Dickies: Kids buy your pants:
because they're not extreme. They buy.
them because they're well-made and
unassuming. Janitors wear them. That
makes them kind of cool. You should
fire your Director of Marketing.
The contest was in the parking
lot of the Hard Rock casino and,
boy, was it hot. Moist towels were
handed out and worn as hats by
the competitors so they could avoid
the heat stroke that flattened a
couple of people at last year's
event. It's pretty safe to assume
that very few people were skating
for the pure joy of it with
temperatures reaching 105.
No offense to any of the
competitors or comeback
kids who entered the event,
but the qualifying heats
looked a lot like a damn 1988
CASL amateur contest: invert,
frontside air, backside air,
oh, darn, bailed the sweeper!
The shit was plain terrible.
Even a lot of the guys that
used to revert and bluntslide
their way into the top 10 in
1991 were relying on stock,
State Fair quality air shows. If
no one killed vert, they sure
as heck
wounded it a
few years
back. Oh,
well, at least
we've got the
foreigners.
Ben Pappas,
Colin McKay,
and Bob
Burnquist
were spec-
tacular in
practice
Colin revert-
ed both
switch back-
side tailslides
HARD ROCK LAS VEGAS 1997
and switch backside nosegrinds, and Bob's qualifying
run had to be seen to be believed. It ended with a
bizarre switch axle stall-like pause beneath the coping
where he somehow twisted his body around back-
wards before riding it back down. Danny Way and Phil
Hajal were also fucking up the proverbial shit.
Regardless of how good the aforementioned can skate,
that's not the way contests work. Here's the top 10:
10th: Mathias Ringstrom is driven. As Tony Mag's
protégé, Mathias has come to America and will con-
quer all competition with his highly technical maneu-
vers, which can hardly be understood by his American
opponents. With his kickflip methods, 7208s and other
until-now-unnamed variations, the Swedish stallion
THESE GUYS DIDN'T MAKE THE CUT BUT WHAT MORE
CAN YOU SAY ABOUT A 10FT AIR? LINCOLN UEDA
DROPPING A BRAZILIAN BEATDOWN ON YOUR BRAIN.
PHOTO BY DAWES. SEQUENCE: LANCE MOUNTAIN WELL
IN CONTROL OF A FALL GUY (FRONTSIDE INVERT TO
FAKIE, THE HARD WAY). PHOTOS BY BURNETT.
tough, but it's not as hard as face-high, Alley-oop
stalefishes, which Max did, among other things. Max
rides for Invisible, but doesn't have a model. Mayber
8th place will get the ball rolling.
7th: The lack of a roof to hit hampered Neal
Hendrix's overall performance, but he still blasted and
twisted better than most. What's even more surprising
is he does it all without the aid of knees.
3rd: Bob Burnquist can do switch kickflip
Indys to fakie the standard way, with-
out the board flipping and even by
grabbing it on the wrong side and
pizza flipping it beneath him. He did
each variation in the finals, as well as
switch Alley-oop 50/50s, switch
frontside inverts, and those tweaked
switch Indy airs we all love so much.
Bob is Thrasher's favorite vert skater,
if you didn't know.
2nd: "Old MacDonald had a
run. Ee-eye, ee-eye, oh. And in
this run he did some tricks. Ee-
eye, ee-eye, oh. With a nollie flip
here, and a McTwist there. Here
a blunt, there a spin, everywhere
a..." OK, OK, that idea was
doomed from the start. Andy
MacDonald got 2nd place with
consistency and hard tricks. His
goal is to change the public per-1
ception of the sport of skate-
boarding. Ee-eye, ee-eye, oh.
ist: Tony Hawk invented half
the good tricks that everyone
else was doing. When he quits
skating, about
a hundred
tricks will
become
extinct.
because no
one else can
do them. Tony
did kickflip
varial Indys,
followed by a
540, but could
I have won with
the run he did
in Munster,
Germany, in
1990 when his
board looked
like a bath tub and he still wore a ponytail. Hawk!
Hawk! Hawk! Hawk!
At this point, the mad props section of the story, it is
appropriate to thank the event's hosts and volun-
teers involved. Instead, I will offer thanks to Tony
Hawk, who kept vert skating progressing through the
dark ages, and to all the non-Californians (ie:
Australians, Brazilians, Midwesterners, East Coasters,
etc) who were late to hear the news that vert skating
was out and kept learning new tricks. It is to you peo-
ple that we all owe a round of applause for extend-
ing the life of the vert contest for at least another 10
years. You deserve every cent Dickies EXTREME has to
give. Thank you, again. -Michael Burnett
"Hit Me!"
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