Last Saturday Skateworks had a nice shop signing/Enjoi demo/ Krux kickflip challenge to celebrate the grand opening of their new shop in Santa Rosa.
On hand were Cario Foster, Caswell Berry, Nestor Judkins and Jose Rojo.
Once again the top honors were taken by none other than Quinn Iracleous. This was his second Kickflip Challenge win this season. He's been on the KFC tour circuit and serving up the kickflips. He only got to 66 this time. His personal best from last year is 210. Dang.
I got 7.
But I'm cool with that cause I at least took out Creepy Kyle Camarillo (Enjoi's filmer) who only got 4.
(I just wanted to put this picture of me in there cause I dwarf the children so.)
For the recod I did beat Quinn as well my nemesis from Santa Cruz/ C.A.S.L. combatant, Tommy Werner at a rousing game of s.k.a.t.e.. Mostly cause Tommy went easy on me and bailed his token fakie double flip.
This is what its come to folks, tryin to beat the youngsters at skate and relishing the victory via bloggage.
Here's a picture of Quinn with me and Caswell.
Quinn didn't choke but he's rockin' the sticker anyway. Maybe to make us less consistent kickflippers feel a little better about ourselves. Good kid.
Here's Jason Strubing. Justin Strubing's brother who was running the show on Saturday.
Looking quite pleased.
Thank you TC for running the KFC proper, taking all the photos and everything!!!
-ronald
Bonus Story:
So on the way up Jason was mentioning that he had broken his humerus (har har) and that Justin broke his neck previously at the Santa Rosa park.
I was there at the time. Must have been 95 or 96. He was going up to the main launcher, super fast, with plans to go big. He got cut off which is no suprise with the snake run layout. He carved around the kid last minute and continued to go for it 100%. His balance was still trying to right itself right when he ollied. His board flew away like a discus. Immediately he started tilting back and swinging his arms. Trying to roll up the windows in hopes to slow down his rotation.
There's a little something I like to refer to as "skaters perspective". When you're filming or watching a trick from the run up of the obstacle. You really get to see what the run up looks like and what the preperation is to skate the obstacle in front of you. I was about to hit that same launch right after Justin so I was watching him go from that perspective. The flyaway in question is pretty much an extended spine so from "skater's perspective" I saw Justin launch off the side I could see and by the time he cleared the spine and fell into the part that I couldn't see he was completely upside down. Falling onto his head/neck like this:
neckiotomy
Only he didn't have the luxury of freshy pow-pow and landed on cement.
He got up and felt a little wierd. Turned out he broke vertabrae in his neck. He was shredding in a neck brace later that week. I hope no skate parents are reading this.
So we get to the park and we're all skating around and warming up. Caswell and I decide to take it to the main launch. Both hoping to rehash a little air in the name of previous contests. Caswell used to enter Casl contests here and I had a nice little run at a pro one in the 90's.
I decided to to go big for the first attempt. I got a lot of speed and thought to do a japan grab in honor of Justin. That's the trick he tried when he broke his neck. Well no one cut me off but when I ollied and reached down to grab I felt myslef lose all balance and as soon as I was off the lip (OTL) I found myself rotating backwards. I mimicked Justin's neck breaking half gainer almost 100%. It was abosolutley the scariest place I've put myself skating. Ever.
All I could see were the sky and clouds before impact.
The first thing I felt was my head skip of the cement. I think instead of landing completely compressed (chin into chest) my head tweaked to the side so I got a little more shoulder. Then my back hit the ground with quite a slap.
I got up as quickly as possible. I was happy that I could get up. I was waiting for my head to fall off or to see some bone sticking out somewhere. I threw my board down and skated back to the starting point. The open-mouth looks, from all the other skaters in the park, said my fall looked as bad or worse than it felt.
I just kept skating so I wouldn't think about what just happened. It was too scary and humilitating. I felt like I'd been through the ringer but didn't actually have any injury to stop me.
The next (necks'd) morning when I woke up my head had a sore spot and my neck was stiff. It felt like somebody donkey punched the hell outta my back. I have this rib that pops away from my sternum and it feels like she's floatin' again.
But all in all it was a fun day. I was (am) very appreciative of life and feel very blessed to be alive and able to skate, When I was upside down and about to land on my head I was pretty much ready to call it an existence. I had a good run. I can't complain. When I got on my feet it felt like I was given a bonus chance at life. Excuse the cliche.
I went back and got a few airs over the spine to redeem myself and even took a couple games of skate from my man Tommy who is rather dastardly at the game.
I only got a 7 in the kickflip challenge but I'll gladly take that low (but lucky) number to live to play another day.
