Back in the day, my best friend Larry, my brother John and I were sessioning the downhill at Lake Pleasant. Out of the darkness walks T.A., Shogo Kubo, and a few other pro skaters. They told us Shogo had just lost his board in the darkness when he hit a crack (between pipe sections) as they skated through the pipeline towards our end. The cracks were usually 2-3 inches wide (the rule was to hit the cracks on the walls when you were weightless, or pay the price), and I had seen Larry rip the core out of a urathene wheel recently leaving only bearings on the axle. The board was a brand new fiberglass Z-Flex model, GOLD for us back then as we were riding very primitive equipment in those days.
We pulled a safety meeting with T.A., skated alot, and much later he took a hard slam riding the downhill, so hard he lost his pads. We were all stoked, what a super cool session, and Larry went home that day with Alva’s old school basketball knee pads. We never did find that damn board, it’s probably still down there somewhere…
Skateboarding Archive of Steve Pingleton
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Centennial Daze
Hassyampa Daze