If somebody would have told me before I went on the Hawk Tour that stop No. 2 in Arizona would be a balmy 110 degrees, I would have shaven my head for maximum coolness. Luckily for us, the demo was in an air-conditioned indoor park. The park was built by the S.D.G. Skatepark crew. These guyz build sick parks all over the U.S.

Meanwhile, back on the bus, the boys decided to take a slight detour to an empty pool just outside of Tucson. The pool reminded me of the Pink Motel pool in Animal Chin. Jared, one of the cameramen on the Tou,r took a big slam in the pool; he got up and started leaking cerebrospinal fluid out of his nose. The team was scared but kept skating. Luckily, Barry the trainer was there with the ice.

Tony Hawk

We got a chance to skate the park the night before the demo. It was a chance to establish some lines in the brand-spanking-new skate facility. Everybody was so stoked on the set-up; it was like a mini Woodward, complete with a foam pit, a bowl with pool coping and a phat street course. Alex Chalmers, Donny Barley and Brian Sumner wasted no time and went right to work. Alex was doing the huge wall rides about 16-feet-high as well as some stylish nose blunts. D.B. was attacking the handrail with reckless abandon, switch and regular. Sumner was landing kick flip tail slides on the same rail. Nice warm up sesh! One of the owners of the park this cool guy named Steve, even provided us with refreshments and tunes. Gotta love the Tour!

Alex Chalmers

The next day was slightly cooler then the day before -- a refreshing 107 degrees. Some of the local skaters don't even have air-conditioning in their cars. How psycho is that? I wouldn't be caught dead anywhere in Arizona without A.C. Just over 800 to 900 people showed up; too bad the park capacity was only 300. We decided the best way for everyone to have a chance to check out the demo was to do the demo in shifts. We let 300 in for the street demo then had them all leave, and let 300 new Arizonans for the vert demo. The only problem with that was there was still about 200-300 who hadn't gotten in. Tony and da boyz decide to have an expression session on the street course for the remainder of the spectators outside. Everyone got in and got to check out some of the best skating in the world. Mike Vallely wasted no time logging in some punk points by going huge all over the place with the crowd going crazy. Mike is gnarly!

Lincoln Ueda

The vert demo was insane to the membrane, to say the least. Lincoln Ueda hit the rafters with his arm on a couple of his airs. You see, the vert ramp is about 12 feet high and the rafters are about 16 feet above the copping . I am no mathematician, but that's just under 30 feet in the air. You could stack four Shaquille O'Neals on top of each other and Lincoln would still be able to clear them. Thirty-five-year-old Kevin Staab can bust the smoothest backside ollies of any one I know. Local Arizona ripper Chris Livingston was on fire until he snapped his board in half doing a disaster. Tony was blazing Hawk style with his patented varial 720s and he even busted out with a series of 1980 moves like invert's fast plants, and even a boneless thrown in for good measure. How can this tour get any burlier? You will just have to log on EXPN.com to find out.

Robert Earl update:
It seems that Robert got another sucker to drive the Hyundai to San Diego. That scapegoat would be Sal Masakela, who lost a bet with Mr. Earl when they went Quad racing in the desert and Sal lost both times. Robert "Jeremy McGrath" Earl beat Sal with sandals on; kids, please don't try this at home! It looks like when you lose a bet on the bus, you simply get voted off by The Hawk Tribal Council. I wonder where they got that idea? Mmm. Next stop: Tony Hawk's hometown of San Diego. I hear we are gonna have a barbecue at his house after the demo. This writer will be there with a full recap of the events … what a tough job!

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