116 THRASHER
Dirty Al throws up a clean blindside stalefish to fakie at the skatepark in Lawren
cramps out of our legs that had formed
somewhere along the interstate.
The park is a simple design with con-
crete banks and quarterpipes on top of an
asphalt surface. The obstacles suck, but the
flow is good. The layout has the obstacles
in each of the four corners; one corner has
a five-stair with a good-sized handrail.
Good luck getting enough speed to clear
the stairs; the runway is too short. The best
part of the park is the mini-ramp. It is 24
feet wide, 5 feet tall, and layered with
Skatelight. Local boy Joel Smith helped
build the ramp, and now he builds those "X
could have judged the distance
of the hike if we knew how big
the cannon was when we
started toward it. This thing is
huge and pointing at
Oklahoma-look out below!
The next exit was the
Dreamland Motel, the motel
where Timothy McVeigh slept
the night before he drove to
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to
do his deed.
The park in
Junction City is
"The collision with the
inline skater sent both
of them into the air"
Games" courses you see on TV.
Al's bag of tricks include backside 360°
melons on the quarter, 180' to front truck
grind down the rail, huge stalefish to fakies
on the quarter, and
an ollie one-foot to
pivot fakie. Did
I mention he
skates fast
and does
all of these in
a line? We skated
the park until 10:30
PM thanks to the lights,
and then after a quick stop
at Al's, we went to the bar to
shoot some pool.
Monday
The next morning, Nate and Gabe from Let
It Ride skate shop knocked on the door
and offered to drive us to Junction City.
There was a new park there and they both
had the day off and a "K tag," courtesy of
Nate, to eliminate the toll fees, at least until
the bill arrived. Gabe has a van, so the ride
was much more spacious. Al took advan-
tage of this and slept the entire drive.
Just east of Junction City we could see
the atomic cannon from the interstate. The
atomic cannon was used to test atomic
bombs in the 1940s and is capable of pro-
pelling the bombs far enough away to pre-
vent any fallout from affecting the people
setting off the bombs.
We exited off the interstate, parked, and
began the atomic walk to where the can-
non was perched on the hill. We probably
REAMLAN
a typical X Games course with a collection
of wooden obstacles on a flat slab of con-
crete. This time, however, the obstacles
were a little bigger than usual and were at
least transitioned proportionately.
While Al slept on the park bench for
most of the day, the rest of us took full
advantage of the park-before all the
kids were got out of school. We
had the park to ourselves for
the next three hours.
During that time, Gabe
learned backside
Smith grinds
The atomic cannon
McVeigh's motel
Junction City's Xtreme course
down the ledge, and Dave Nelson managed
to pull multiple hardflips into the bank.
This was no easy feat since he had room to
push only once, and it was a half push at
that. He tried to 360° flip the same but
there just wasn't enough room.
Thad has a sketchy style and this came
to haunt him that day. He really likes to do
alley-oop frontside grinds, and alley-oop
frontside grinds really like to lock up. This
happened to him twice in a 30-minute
period. Between the two hang-ups he col-
lided with a spaced-out fruitbooter. The
slam intensity went like this: The first
hang-up was on an 8-foot quarterpipe and
sent him diving shoulder-first to the flat.
The collision with the inline skater sent
both of them into the air and further aggra-
vated his swellbow. The second hang-up
was on a 6-foot quarter. It wasn't as bad