Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

Terell Robinson frontside flipped it to flat

A few skate spots Frosty and I ran into while skating around downtown San Diego

The new Supra shoes are looking pretty good. We should have these in the Shop in March

Brian Dunlap from Matix threw in $500 for Jereme Rogers. He did about 20 tricks on the rail, many of which were first try and switch

Video footage of Gailea Momolu's nollie big spin back lip that won him 10 grand. He had two tries left. On his second to last try, he made it but picked up mad change on a full patty cakes landing. On his last try, he made it completely clean (3mb Windows Media video)

Gailea Momolu got 10 grand for that nollie big spin back lip on the rail. Gailea, sorry for spelling your name wrong on the check

Looks like Chris Cole is getting a bit of influence from Tony Cervantes

Chris Cole - frontside bluntslide fakie

Random photos from Saturday - we got to see the premiere of King of the Road 2005. It was good. You need to buy it

Here's a few photos from Friday night. That was the Etnies Party at the show, the Vans Party on some yacht, and then getting denied at the Kayo Party where Ghostface was

Antwuan Dixon - overnight rock star status. He was wearing a pair of the Ellington Supra shoes

Here's a few photos from Thursday night

I can’t believe how lame our flights out west were. I guess that it’s my fault for booking them, but we had to fly from Tampa to Cincinatti, where we had a three-hour layover before our nearly five-hour flight to San Diego. What the hell though…the tickets were only $250 each. We arrived on Thursday evening, just in time to head out to dinner with our bestest friend from the newly formed Empire Distribution, Justin Williams.

I don’t know what the rest of the guys did, but I turned in early because I was still on east coast time. Rob apparently had some fun times though, because we saw him at the trade show the next morning with a good sized gash in his head. The paramedics that wrapped up the wound suggested that Rob get a couple of staples, but Rob toughed it out and blew off the hospital (that would have taken away from too much party time).

The mini-ramp jams went off. We got to see the likes of Gershon Mosley, Tony Froude, a group of kids from Oregon including Stevie Reeves, and believe it or not, both Tom Penny and Chad Muska were skating the mini-ramp. One highlight was this Venice guy named Stoney trying to fight Muska right up there on the platform. From the jams it was out to the parties.

Friday night was pretty ill. We got the special invite to the Vans 40 Years in Business or something like that Party. It was on a boat that was fully catered and had an open bar. All of their execs and most of their pro skaters were in attendance, but I was most entertained by Chris Casey of the Captain and Casey Show. That kid was so funny that we gave him a job at Tampa Am next week as co-announcer. I couldn’t believe that Steve Van Doren and his daughter Christy were working the door. That’s dedication for you.

If you had the moves, wouldn’t you be down to break yourself off for 10 G’s? I certainly would. But I must admit that even if I had the skills that the $10,000-winner-take-all purse is a pretty intimidating. But Matix kicked down the loot and that’s how they wanted it, so that’s what they got.

Schaefer built what was equivalent to an 11-stair rail and instead of stairs there was a bank helped a bit with the safety factor. But regardless, 11 stairs still makes for quite a lengthy handrail and we had some great guys in the Contest that came for a shot at the $10,000.

It was nearly 4pm and everything was about to go down, but we were missing something. That something goes by the name of Chris Cole. I was on a mission with Fallen TM Mike Sinclair to get Chris up in the mix as fast as possible. Chris didn’t have a badge to get into the show so I had to flex with Security to make special provisions to get Cole into the Convention Center under the circumstances. Anyone that has dealt with Security at ASR can attest to the fact that they’re not exactly flexible when it comes to the rules. I must have sprinkled the magic powder properly or something because I got Chris through the doors without a hitch.

Okay, so then it was on! Chris Cole was my favorite to win, but I don’t think that he was really feeling it. Chris did a fs bluntslide to fakie among a couple other tricks, but then he just couldn’t land the bigspin out of the fs blunt, which damn well could have sealed the deal for him. Chris told me that he skated for a solid three hours before the jam trying to shoot a trick, which left his legs feeling like Jello. Chris still manned up and gave it what he had though...I wish that he would have landed the bs 360 ollie over the rail.

We had Ernie Torres up in the mix. Big Ern nailed a couple of moves and was working on a kickflip front board that he just couldn’t nail. Ernie said that he was nervous and it just wasn’t working for him. I don’t blame him, because there were well over 1000 onlookers wanting to see some carnage.

But that didn’t stop newcomer pro Jeff Ward who skated the entire time. I don’t think that anyone really knew who he was, but it was cool to have him in the comp. He didn’t exactly have any bangers that were up to the level that would earn the 10 grand, but his “am shuffle,” otherwise known as a fs boardslide body varial, was on point. He was the only guy to actually “rack” on the rail, but he claimed that it only barely tipped his “noots.”

Evan Hernandez was the first guy that was entered from his team manager and I have to be honest because I said to one of my cohorts, “He’s not going to skate.” I’m glad that he proved me wrong because Evan came correct with a switch front boardslide. I heard that Schaefer claimed that he was going to give him $100 just for skating and after the Jam Evan asked me, “Who do I collect my $100 from?” I told him to hit up ol’ Schaefer for his bill.

Darrell Stanton had the eye-of-the-tiger, but I’m still not sure of what he was exactly trying for about 20 minutes. He did a nollie fs boarslide with relatively no effort, but then kept trying to nollie into something else for the rest of the session. We weren’t sure if he was going for a fs noseslide, nosegrind, or a damn Willy grind, but Darrell came up short each time.

I also thought that Greg Lutzka had a good chance of taking home the prize money. He was warming up and started to spin his 270 fs ollie to backside noseblunt...or switch front blunt. However you want to call it is up to you, but that’s one of his moves that he can throw down on a flatbar every single time. Greg took a few tries and then sat down and called it quits...I don’t think that he was feeling 100%.

At the final hour Matix decided to kick down $500 for second place and that worked out very well for Jereme Rogers (who now has stepped into the tattoo club with ink on his neck). Jereme basically saved the lame contest circuit this year by placing top five in most of those Mt. Dew deals and then he still steps up to the legit jams and throws down what he can. Had Gailea not landed his banger, Jereme would have take the 10 G’s with his backside noseblunt.

When it came down the last few minutes of the Jam and we were giving the guys their last tries, Gailea Momolu turned up the heat. Before the Contest started he claimed that he wasn’t even going to skate at all. Then as we began he started working on nollie bs 50-50’s, which he got dialed relatively quickly. His banger was a nollie bigspin backside lipslide. It took him 20+ tries to nail it, but the one that he pulled was so buttery smooth that it was uncontestable that he was the winner of the loot.

Thanks to ASR for making the event happen and to Tony E., the Dunlap bros, Gav, Gabe, and the rest of the gentlemen at Matix for throwing in the loot. I’m sure we’ll be back next show with another event.

The ‘official’ party to go to on Saturday night was the Thrasher “King of the Road” Video Premiere, which will actually be premiered again at Tampa Am next weekend. The club that it was held in was a little high end, but that didn’t stop Phelps and the crew from setting the place off. The flick was proper and the bands rocked. I got to see Manic Hispanic, who covered a bunch of old punk songs, but I left before T.S.O.L. played. Good times...