Here I am sitting in a mini van, listening to Nirvana
while driving to Calgary, Canada from Seattle, the birthplace of
Starbucks. It seems fitting to crank up Nirvana and reflect back on our
demo in Grunge Town, seeing as it was Kurt Cobain's home town. Rain City
Skate Park in downtown Seattle really lived up to the name "Rain City"
because in true Pacific Northwest fashion it was raining! Rain, sleet or
snow couldn't keep the crowd of 1000 from jam packing the old warehouse
now converted into skate palace.
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| Mike
Vallely |
The place reminded me of a crusty fish house from the thirties. I
expected the Gordon fish stick man to walk in at any time, but he was
nowhere in sight. The street park was "sweet sauce", it had plenty of
rails, ledges, and a couple of strategically placed fun boxes.
Once again Alex Chalmers, "the man on a mission" was hitting big
frontside noseslides down the fun box in a stylee fashion. He was also
killing 180 nosegrinds on another ledge in front of ESPN V.I.Ps, almost
spilling their lattes. How about that Bam Margera kid? Bam is always
finding something to hurl himself off of. This time it was the back of the
vert ramp, about 15-16 feet in the air, above the street course. This
death jump was as big as the one he attempted in Frankfurt Germany.
Jackass hero Bam pulled this drop off within about 10 tries, something he
was not able to do in Duetschland.
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| Bam
Margera |
Brian Sumner, on the other hand, had a clinic going on the square
rail. Mike Vallely was feeding off the crowd and was tearing up the
concrete on the street course like a 190-pound pavement breaker; did I
mention I use to work in construction? The tour vegan, Steve Berra, was
doing these kickflip boardslides that would have made The Gonz proud. To
coin a term from the year 2000, the street demo was off the hook!
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| Alex
Chalmers |
The vert portion of the demo was as Bill and Ted would have said,
"bodacious". The vert dogs consisted of Tony, Kevin Staab, Sean White,
Donny Barley and Mike Vallely, yes, I said Mike Vallely. Mike can skate
what ever he likes and nothing you can say will change that. Mike busted a
1-footed grab over the channel between the mini ramp and the vert ramp.
Once again there was blood once again dripping from his swellbow. Donny
Barley was trying to pull a frontside ally-oop on the same gap,
unfortunately D.B didn't stick it, but he did however hit a backside ollie
across the gap-tosses. Even Shaun White got into the action, clearing the
now infamous gap. The highlight of the day was when tour master Tony Hawk
pulled a backside 360-ollie-boardslide. I get dizzy just talking about it.
Tony said that was the first time he has ever pulled that off at a demo of
this magnitude. What a huge crowd, Seattle rocks! Next Stop #6, the final
stop on the west coast leg of The Tony Hawk Gigantic Skate Park Tour. This
time the boys will be in Calgary, Canada at The Millennium Skate Park.
This is supposedly the largest skate park in all of North America. See you
there! Check back to EXPN.com for all the details and photos.
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