Check out Maria Carrasco's Wrap-Up of the 2008 Slaloim season, either in the Holiday '08 edition of Concrete Wave Magazine...
...or by downloading the PDF of the CW article from the archives here. There are loads of Concrete Wave in PDF format. Check it out. Click the photo to download the article.
When you think of the Wild West, several images come to mind. Gun slinging outlaws in a dusty, desert town terrifying the townsfolk running amok through saloons, shooting off Colt revolvers in celebratory fashion. Modern day Albuquerque is not too far from that. The town is kinda edgy, hence the nick-name Albucracky. Plenty of tweekers and outlaw biker types roaming around, not to mention the gangs. But what's an outlaw to do? I mean, you gotta live somewhere. Now, you might think this does not really sound like a place you'd like to vacation, but if you are a skateboarder, Albuquerque is probably the best place for you to be. I consider it to be Skateboardtown, U.S.A. or Club Med for skateboarders. No matter what type of skateboarding you like to do, you can do it in the Albuquerque. The city houses 3 killer concrete skateparks, a ton of pools and all the hills and mountain roads you'd ever want to bomb. But this city has something that no other place on the face of the planet has....ditches....BIG ones...BIGGER than you are thinking right now. Ditches you can't imagine. Endless ditches that take several minutes to descend and have no kink to speak of. These ditches are really more like snake runs from skateparks of days gone by. Yeah...that's a more accurate description, only imagine that snake run to be 3 miles long. Seriously...I am not joking. It is the Land of Enchantment, certainly. But it's also The Land of a Thousand Ditches.
Albuquerque lies in a valley on the western side of Sandia Peak and its urban sprawl reaches right up to the base of the 10,678 foot tall peak. Due to the nature of flash flooding in the desert, many ditches, or arroyos as they are called, had to be built. I have a hard time believing that the civil engineers that planned and built these things were not skateboarders. They run down the mountain and into the valley and I don't mean just one or two. More like 20 or 30 just on that side of town alone and a lot of them are so long and big you think they might be landing strips for U.F.O.s or something.
U.F.O. landing strip or flood control? The Bear can eat you alive. Bennett Harada stylyin' it up like no other. Photo: Stubbs
There are ditches that run for miles and miles and if you know them well enough, you can even do what a lot of the locals do.....use them for transportation. You can take a ditch down a mile or two, get out of that ditch and skate over a block or two and drop into another ditch, taking you to the library, the video store, or even work. Indian School is one of these ditches. It just happens to be the fastest of all of them due to the incline on which it is built. That incline consists of a somewhat mellow 7 degrees to the hairball hold-on-to-your-britches 12 degrees. The entire ditch runs down the mountainside all the way to I-25 but the skatable section is just over 2 miles in length, ending at the "Witch's nose", a 3 walled bank over the tunnel that has a concrete divider shooting down the middle that you can actually grind upon. It is a blast to skate. Local Jeff Chalakee lives right behind it and his backyard houses a killer ramp, the site of many a race after party. The race course is right at a mile and it is a full 3 minute leg burner. Training for this race should probably be akin to that of what a downhill ski racer goes through to prepare for his or her races, far from the strict training guidelines Ryan, my road-trip counterpart, and I had been following, which pretty much consisted of ice cream, beer and Chunky Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies. Since Albuquerque is near a mountain, the elevation is obviously a little higher than the near sea level elevation we are used to. Over a mile high, actually, which wreaks havoc on your respiratory system and dehydrates your body like a fish out of water. You'll know you're from Texas when the skin on your fingers and lips begin to crack and bleed due to the 4% humidity. With all this said, no matter what the circumstance, I consider it a small sacrifice to ride what is the North Shore of Oahu for skateboarders.
Stubbs, Mollica, BIG Ryan Photo: Steve Flusche
Several years ago, I took my first trip to Albuquerque to see what was up with all the talk about giant, no-kink ditches that went on forever and ever and, to be honest, there was nothing that could have prepared me for what I would find. My first run down any ditch in Albuquerque was the world famous Indian School. Standing atop the ditch it looks like one of the most skate-friendly slabs of concrete you've ever laid eyes upon. And skate-friendly it is, though it can be very unfriendly to the uninitiated. I know. I got the ditch slapped right outta me my very first run and not 5 minutes out of the car from a 10 hour drive. As we arrived at the top of the ditch, ABQ. local and O.G. Texan from Lubbock Mike Lowry and world class downhiller Jim-Z start yanking out protective gear, all stoked on a tail wind.....whatever....it's just a ditch, right? Ha! "Uh....Mike? Is this Indian School? The real smooth, mellow looking ditch with no kinks?" I ask with a lump in my throat. "Yeah..." he says. "Uh...how fast we gonna go????" I respond, looking at his helmet and Jim's full-face. Mike licks his thumb and sticks it in the air to get a read on the wind. "Hmmmm...30?" With that taint-tightening reply, I reach for my cover lying in the back of the Suburban trying not to look or feel worried. I harkened back to bombing Loop 12 in Dallas where I had been clocked in the upper 40's at times and it gave me a little reinforcement. I would soon realize that 30 mph in this ditch is more like 50 mph plus on any given hill. Caleb "the brown recluse" Escamilla had accompanied me on this trip and he just grabs one of the many random longboard set-ups I had with me and heads toward the ditch. That man has a lot of confidence on both a skateboard and surfboard and he knew just what to do. He ended up bombing the ditch staying right on Jim-Z's ass the whole way down which Jim found astonishing especially when he learned it was Caleb's first run ever. Like I said, Caleb is rad. As we climb down into the Indian, the sun is setting and the tail wind starts pushing us and I instantly forget any thoughts of fearing for my life or self preservation. Pumping back and forth, I'm having more fun than I have ever had skating anything ever!!! After about 25 yards or so I am starting to really pick up speed and the 59" board with sloppy loose trucks underneath me is bending and flexing in ways it never had with all forces of the Indian being thrown up against it. Rounding the first corner the walls start to widen and grow taller. After a few more pumps and turns, what started out as mellow, chest to head high has now turned into serious business at double overhead. I check my speed...."HOLY CRAP! I AM HAULING ASS!!!!!!" I hit the next turn and the walls are really tall here, maybe a little bigger than double overhead, and then I see it... the tunnel.....totally unexpected. My mind starts racing, "I gotta go down into that thing at this speed??? What the hell is in there??? What's on the other side??? I have waaaaaaaaay too much speed!! I could die here! This place looked so mellow in those pictures!!!! Nobody warned me about any of this!!! ARRRRRRRGHHH!!!!" Another two or three turns and it's upon me....gotta make this count. I thrust up one more wall and then it happened....my board bottoms out scraping wood on concrete due to it's extreme length and it throws me waaaaaaay off balance. I had about a second to make the choice of flying down into or out of the beast....I chose out. Flying through the air, I land in the scrub and cactus, my elbows jabbing into my stomach knocking all the wind from me and giving me a pretty good bruise on the ribs. Jim-Z rolls up behind me concerned but laughing, says "Bro! Are you okay? That is one of the gnarliest wipe outs I've ever seen here!!!" "Gasp.....yeah...gasp.....I'm fine," I wheezed.
Welcome to Albuquerque!!!
Ditches are everywhere in this town. So many I don't even remember the name of this one.
Last year at Indian School 2007, the Marshall (George McClellan) and Rob Palmer (Sector 9 pro) who put on the race, started doing things a bit different in that to have the opportunity to run Indian School, you now have to qualify. So, in 2007, me and Steve Flusche from Dallas and Big Ryan Smith from Austin made the trek out to try to qualify to run with the big dogs at Indian School. Me and Steve blew it big time but Ryan qualified with a top 10 placing and earned a trip back to the big show in 2008. So...the race was set for Friday, April 18th and the plan was for Ryan to make the journey to Dallas on Tuesday the 15th for an early evening departure so we could get in a few extra days of riding and to get acclimated to the harsh desert surroundings. Steve had unknowingly planned a Caribbean cruise with his 'womern right in the middle of race week so he would not be going with us this year and we could not resist cracking a couple of jokes about him behind his back throughout our trip. (He got to skate Kona anyway so don't feel sorry for him). We left Dallas just about the time rush hour got pretty thick but before long we were chewing up blacktop and making great time under the setting Texas sun. The IPod was packed with a few hundred hours of music, we rolled back the sunroof and tried to look as heterosexual as is possible for two middle aged men with shaved heads in a nicely washed Toyota Avalon sedan. We rolled into Amarillo about 10:30 and Ryan was beat so we decided to stay the night there and get up early for the 3 hours or so further into Albuquerque. Beers and fast food put us out like a light.
The next morning we hit the road early and watched the sun rise behind us in the sky above the high plains of the Texas panhandle. A few years earlier I was travelling through this same area with my wife and daughter and we had made a detour through a small New Mexico town that was filled with so many pools I swore one day I'd get back. I told Ryan I wanted to check 'em out and he gave no arguement and I would not expect him to. For those that don't know, I would venture a guess that Ryan has probably drained more pools than most of us put together in the state of Texas and surrounding states. Hell, he might even be THE pool draining champion. He just loves to drain pools. They don't even have to be good ones; he just likes watching water leave a pool. Regardless of who has done what, suffice to say, Ryan is a pool draining freak. He was certainly down for some recon.
Travelling along old Route 66, it's hard to imagine that this road used to be THE highway of choice this nation used for so many years. It's old, two lane blacktop is pitted, rough and really uncared for. Still, there is something to be said for cruising around the countryside on America's most fabled stretch of road. Upon entering the town, it was clear to see that it had really fallen on hard times. A lot of the businesses that were around a few years ago are now boarded up. One of the few eateries in town, Pizza Hut, was now gone along with the Dollar General Store. It looked more like a ghost town than it ever did and we saw very few people. Thankfully some of the businesses in that town were motels, the kind that were built during what would have been considered the salad days of Route 66, and they too were now abandoned. We stopped at the first one: empty square with about 6 inches of brown dirty. Next door was a left hand kidney with a shallow end keyhole and the manager was outside. Ryan starts snapping pics of the pool and he starts telling us the pool is closed. We tried to tell him what we were doing but he looked at us like we were extra terrestrials. Across the street another square. Next to that, a nice little egg. We found 6 or 7 empty pools within 300 yards of each other. By this time Ryan was frothing, pacing and snapping pictures like a giddy tourist visiting Disney World for the first time. We could have stayed a week in that town and been content but we were on a mission and we had to stay on track. We told each other we were going to leave ABQ. a day early and spend a day in this town as we blazed down Route 66 looking for an entrance to the interstate.
A couple of hours later, we roll into Albuquerque and head to what would be home for the next week, the Days Inn at Hotel Circle, just off I-40. It's close proximity to Indian School ditch and Los Altos skatepark makes this area perfect geographically but the tweeker factor is high so you have to watch it. On my first trip out years back some guy was hacked down by another Albucrackian with a Samurai sword in the Howard Johnson's parking lot right across the street. Like I said, this town can be sketchy. Check in was not until 4 pm but we decided to see if they'd let us do an early check-in and they did. For $50 bucks a night, you can not beat the Days Inn, Hotel Circle. We unloaded the car and started jacking with set-ups for the ditch and within an hour or so we were taking our first runs. No matter how many times I run that ditch, I never will get used to it. I've probably had 100 runs down her in my lifetime yet every time I do it I get scared like it's my first. Forces are put on your body and equipment at Indian School that you'll find nowhere else on the planet. I have heard stories from the locals about sheering kingpins in half just by thrusting up and down the kink-free ditch. Mike Lowry told me he was running the Indian once at full speed and saw one of his wheels rolling down the ditch in front of him. (Little hint to those of you wanting to skate in ABQ: Make sure you put on some new axle nuts). After Ryan and I both had taken a couple of runs and subsequently shuttled each other back to the top a couple of times, it was back to the hotel for some lunch and board adjustments and to await the arrival of a couple other racers. Last year us Texans had ended up at the same hotel as Kenny "Nature boy" Mollica, Greg Fadell and Jason "Racer X" Mitchell, all 3 of Pocket Pistols Skates, and had gotten to know them pretty well. This year we gave them the heads up and we all booked rooms at the Days Inn. These guys are some of the fastest on this planet when it comes to racing skateboards and just having them around to pick their brains about set-ups and technical crapola was invaluable, not to mention the great company they make. When everyone finally showed up later than afternoon, we had a small reunion of sorts and all headed up to the ditch for some sunset runs. Skating with these guys is always great but very humbling. Kenny skates better than me when he's holding a video camera, which may not say much but running that ditch with a video camera is insanity yet he does it without thinking about it as easily as you or I would push down to the liquor store for a 6 pack. I tried to run the course which was marked with purple paint, but gave up and just took some surf runs with as many turns as possible. After a few runs I remember Ryan being panicked about not making the cones once but before the end of the day he'd made it clean a couple of times, making both Ryan and myself a little more at ease.
ABQ local K-Lee Tejeda lays down a Bertlemann just past the footbridge at Indian School.
Thursday morning came and my back and legs were already sore just from the few runs we took the previous day. Good thing our hotel had an indoor heated pool and hot-tub because it made waking up much easier. Being that it was the day before the race, I started thinking about Ryan's chances. Like I said before, Ryan earned his bid last year by placing in the top 10 at the qualifier race held at Morris ditch a few miles to the northwest of Indian School and the same ditch where I would try, again, to qualify on Saturday for Indian School 2009. It's a much mellower ditch with a tough start up on the side of the first wall. Absolute hell for a mongo-goofy footed freak like myself, I had to basically put my board on the concrete and jump on. Those of you that know me are laughing hard at this point and you should because it was a sight to behold. It is also the ditch that has the fullpipe at the very top. Anyway, I had been trying to mentally prep Ryan for a few weeks leading up to this point with a few phone calls of positive reinforcement and such that were basically nothing more than pep talks. "Top 10 bro, just think top ten. That automatically get's you a spot in next year's race and you won't have to race to try to qualify on Saturday. You can do that, you're a good enough skater, and you would not have gotten a bid if you weren't." You know, coach talk. We took run after run Thursday cutting it a bit short to save everyone's legs for the race the following day. Mitchell, Fadell and Mollica were certainly ready although I know Kenny was a question mark up until a month prior to this when he came to Austin for the Texas Sizzler. It was his first race back after shattering his heel doing what he does, skating barefoot in a skatepark bowl. At one point Kenny was afraid that he might have to have his foot amputated when it got infected during the healing process so not only was his showing up in Austin a great thing to see, it was even greater that he won the GS. Now, a month later, we're all skating the gnarliest race course on the face of the planet and he's just killing it. The guy is an absolute beast!!! That night we hung out in the hotel room, laughing and carrying on about absolutely nothing, reminiscing about days of yore and of present. One of the things I like most about skateboarding and in particular, the racing scene, is the cast of characters and personalities you get. With the tie that binds being skateboarding, I have as much fun sitting around a dingy hotel room talking and drinking beers with fellow skaters as I do the actual act of skateboarding. Well, almost as much fun. With Ryan able to make the course I was sure he'd be able to make a good showing though there were a lot of heavy names on that roster and I wondered again about his chances in this race.
Ryan and I awoke early, as usual, on race day. We're old and don't sleep too much. 5-7 hours and we're fine. You don't burn too much daylight that way. It's also a little easier to wake up when you have not poured a barrel of alcohol down your throat the night before. I still have a few of those now and again but they seem to be fewer and farther in between as the years go on. Ryan headed to the pool for some laps and a hot tub while I prepared some breakfast in the microwave. We departed the hotel and made our way over to the ditch so Ryan could get a run in before the race. The ditch was wet but it often is so you just have to deal with it. After that we made our way down to the Witch's Nose for the rider's meeting. The timing system would consist of 2 walkie talkies and a stop watch. In the past, a timing system with relays and wires had been used but was more trouble than what it was worth, delaying the race for hours at times. We'd have none of that this year with The Marshall readying riders at the top radioing down when they were set to his friend Dave from Florida who did the count down. I manned the timer's sheet and stop watch, starting it when I heard "GO!" and stopping it when I saw the nose of each rider's board hit the finish line. Not exact or precise but it was enough and it was that way for everyone so it worked pretty well. Hit one cone and you're out of this race. No room for error in the big leagues.
Back in '05 the race at I.S. was shut down by the Man and had to be moved to Carmel ditch. It's cheese grater like surface tore into Steve Lange as he slid across the finish line, unconcious and on his back (shirtless), to a 1st place finish. Shattered helmet and head (concussion), shattered elbow and elbow pad, lot's of skin loss, The Marshall and Palmer look on while Hackett snaps pics.
Photo:Stubbs
Ryan DQ'd on his first run down and I could see he was pissed as he finished his run out and came across the line. Timeship Racing's Will Brunson had smoked it down the course his first run and posted somewhere near a 2:46, an extremely fast time and it set the benchmark for times that day. Ryan certainly wasn't going to beat that but he looked great on his first run other than that cone he had dislodged. I watched rider after rider come across the finish line and things were pretty uneventful for the most part. That is until Sector 9's Noah Sakamota comes charging down to the finish line. There was a small trickle of water running down the ditch and as he came around the last cone he comes down to the center of the flat, squirrels out on his back trucks and gets completely sideways at about 30 mph just before the finish line. But Noah held on, straightened out his rig and crossed the finish in grand fashion. Without question the best recovery I have ever seen. On Palmer's second run he came around the last cone, lost his balance and got thrown off his board. This sent a 40 inch long skateboard enema right at me and Dave sitting on the ladder rungs at the finish line. We scrambled across the ditch for safety just as his board smacked the ladder. Palmer was okay and so were we and the race continued. Ryan's second run had to be a good one if he was going to land in the top 10 and get that automatic qualify for next year's race. When I clocked him in at 2:55 I wondered if it was going to be enough with a few guys still to run. We got the last few guys through the timer, made sure everyone got a time and shut it down. Whew! Another Indian School OUTLAW in the bag. No cops, no pissed off neighbors, no injured skaters. More than once this race has been shut down by the man but it's always been due to skaters being seen by the neighbors pissing under the bridge or smoking weed. The Marshall and Palmer put the kybosh on that crap and they shuttled riders to the top this year 5 at a time. No U-Haul trucks unloading 50 middle aged men in full face helmets and tight leather in the middle of the neighborhood. Good job, men!
I walked up the ditch picking up cones with Dave and we met The Marshall at the footbridge with the times and he tallied them up while Ryan depadded and waited patiently in A/C in my car. When George had the top 10 for sure, he says to me "Stubbs..." and held up both hands and all ten fingers signaling to me that Ryan had placed 10th! I was so stoked for him I had to stop myself from running over to the car. Instead I waited until we dropped off The Marshall and Dave and were on our way back to the hotel to give him the good news. "Seriously???!!! Are you kidding me??? SWEET!!!" He was more than stoked and stoked he should be. Running that course and not hitting any cones is a feat in itself, much less placing top 10. When it was all said and done, here's how it all looked....
1. Will Brusnon - 2:45.56
2. Ryan Ricker - 2:46.38
3. Jason Mitchell - 2:46.88
4. Palmer - 2:48.37
5. Cody Raver - 2:49.97
6. Ken Mollica - 2:50.18
7. Greg Fadell - 2:52.10
8. Steve Lange - 2:53.57
9. David Angelus - 2:54.19
10. BIG Ryan Smith - 2:55.85
Ryan had done what he wanted to do with a top 10 placing. This is nothing to sneeze at, in my opinion. He went up against some heavies at the big dance and came away with what he would certainly consider a win. I would agree with him. He did Texas proud. I was hoping I could do the same on Saturday.
After we grabbed some lunch and had a bit of down time, we gathered up the crew and hit some ditches. La Cueva is a short ditch compared to most in ABQ but it has huge walls that have to be 25 feet high and you can pump the hell out of it while still maintaining a good amount of control and composure. It is in the middle of some really nice $500,000 homes so you can usually only get about 3 runs before someone calls the cops. After that it was on to Layton where you almost have to belly-board through the entrance and it opens up into a super wide chasm of endless concrete. There is a killer drop in up top and roll-outs all the way down the ditch which takes about 5 minutes for a non-stop run. Next door to Layton is Harper. Harper might be my favorite ditch in ABQ with it's super high walls and picturesque setting. None of these ditches are slow, just not as fast as Indian School. And most of them have some water in them at some point but you're going so fast that by the time you hit the next wall the water is instantly spun off.
Your narrator racing at Rio Bravo ditch on the west side of town.
Harper and Layton are so fun because you can control your speed much easier allowing you to really let loose and get comfortable. Just not too comfortable. Harper takes about 7-8 minutes to make one run. We were ready for another cool down so we headed back over to the hotel to hook up with Mollica who had deserted us at some point in our journey. He, Ryan, Fadell, and Mitchell wanted to take some more runs down Indian School but I was done for the day. I had to race the next morning at Morris to try to qualify for next year's race and I wanted to have some legs left. I told everyone I'd shuttle them to the top after every run and that's what we did until everyone's legs were pretty much gone. That night Palmer was grilling burgers in his backyard and everyone was heading over there for a pool session. Me and Ryan were the first ones there as we arrived just before sundown and had to scale the fence. We walked right past the well mannered German Sheppard wagging his tail in glee that someone was there to play with him. Palmer: Get a better guard dog. Ryan had never skated Palmer's egg so we swept it out and in 5 minutes we were taking some runs. He was slashing the deep end frontside and having a blast. Palmer came home from work and after that everyone started showing up. When I saw Abe Towery and Matt Dyke I just took off my pads and put everything in the trunk of my car so I could watch the show. Those two together in one pool is like watching a nuclear detonation. It was an absolute lesson in pool skating. The session started raging and everyone was going off. Ryan tried to drop in the shallow about 5 or 6 times and I think he finally made one but I don't really remember. I do remember him driving his shoulder into the concrete time and again. Ha!
Palmer's
There was an 11 year old kid named Stone Bennett who was given a sponsor's exemption to run Indian School and when I saw him skate Palmer's I saw why. This kid had it goin' on with backside carves and grinds over the stairs and towards the end of the session I saw him doing ollies over the stairs. They train 'em right in ABQ! The Marshall got a few grinds and Palmer was killing it, of course. F/S board slides to revert over the shallow steps. I think his ankles are bionic. By this time I had a few beers in me and was having a great time but I soon had to sober up before we drove back to the hotel. ABQ is notorious for D.U.I. checkpoints so I started downing hamburgers until I was okay. Three did the trick if anyone is wondering. We headed back to the hotel to rack out but before that happened everyone came over to our room and we had another skateboard B.S. session with the Days Inn hotel crew.
Mmmmmm....burgers courtesy of Sector 9 and Palmer...just like mama used to make.
Saturday morning we awoke at our usual 5:30-6:00 am, grabbed some breakfast and headed out the door. Destination this morning was Morris ditch, the site of the qualifier for I.S. '09. Now, if you raced at Indian School the previous day but didn't place top 10 and wanted a chance to race next year, you had to race in this race to try to qualify. And if anyone else wanted to try to qualify they too had to do the same. A top 10 showing would get you two runs at Indian School next year. Ryan said he was going to enter anyway just for grins. What better reason to skate other than fun?
Sector 9's Billy Greene hits flatwall at the top of Morris ditch.
This race had a few more racers than I.S. and the course was much shorter. Steve Lange was running right before Ryan and he was making some great times in practice and on his first run down. By the time he'd made it back to the top of the course after his first run, he was there just long enough to see his ranking go from 1st to 2nd as Ryan was crossing the finish line on his 1st run. After that, Jeff Budro took his run and bumped Ryan out of 1st to 2nd. Steve Lange's 2nd run came up and that moved him back into first but once again, not for long. Ryan smoked it on his 2nd run to take back the 1st place position and that's how it stayed. A few other guys, like Jimmy the Greek, Chuck Dinkins and Kelly Lynn, all had some pretty fast times, including a lot of the locals, too. But it was not enough to top the freight train on a mission from Texas. By placing top 10 at Indian School, Ryan had surely turned some heads. But placing 1st at Morris along with the I.S. placing, he really made some people take notice. Langer asked me "Stubbs...how much does Ryan weigh?" as if to find a reason as to why Ryan beat him. "250 plus." I replied. "He eats Canadians and their bacon."
BIG Ryan Smith on his way to a 1st place finish at Morris ditch.
Lange just laughed but I could tell he and others at that ditch knew for a fact that Ryan was for real and is now a force to be reckoned with. I ended up with a 13th place showing and another year of waiting to get back to try to qualify again. But I'm not worried since that just gives me a reason to get back out to ABQ. Here are the top 10 results from Morris.....
1. Ryan Smith - 60.08
2. Steve Lange - 60.19
3. Jeff Budro - 60.65
4. GREEK - 60.74
5. Kelly Lynn - 61.38
6. Cody Raver - 62.01
7. David Price - 62.24
8. Billy Greene - 62.66
9. David Angelus - 62.69
10. Chris Miller (ABQ) - 62.85
You don't need me to tell you those are some pretty big names in racing right now and I could not have been any more proud of Ryan. People were whooping it up for Ryan as we left the ditch yelling out "TEXAS!!! Yeah, good showing!!!" and things of that nature. It was a good feeling just knowing Texas had arrived in Albuquerque. Good job, Ryan.
BIG Ryan, Mollica, Palmer, Stubbs
We reconvened at the hotel after the race to cool down, grab some lunch and fill the cooler with drinks. We wanted to get some more runs down the Indian and we did but Ryan had another race that night at the new Alamosa Skatepark. We took a few runs with Fadell, Mitchell and Mollica and then headed to the skatepark for the deathrace.
The park is on the southwest side of town in a pretty sketchy area. The kind of area where you park your car where you can see it. Gangstas were creepin' in their cars up and down the street in front of the park, flashing signs at one another and engaging in other gang like activities. Good thing I brought my knife. I always like to have it near just in case a gunfight breaks out. The night was quiet and we had no issues on that front thankfully. What did break out was some killer skating from a stellar crew. Jason Mitchell, Budro, Lange, Greek, Kelly Lynn, Big Ryan, that kid Stone Bennett and a bevy of other locals like Palmer and Ryan E.P. Me and Mike Lowry hung on the side content to watch. I actually ended up running the music and threw on some Big Boys FUN, FUN, FUN to get the party started. Runs were fast and furious as well as the times. It only took a few seconds for the riders to make the drop into the bowl that held the first 3 cones and then it was through the pipe that held 2 more cones. Riders would blast out of the pipe into the other side that houses two more bowls and several more cones. When it was finished, we had all seen some very fast skating and, once again, would find Big Ryan near the top which looked like this...
1. GREEK - 19.97
2. Jason Mitchell - 20.18
3. Jeff Budro - 20.54
4. Will Brunson - 20.56
5. BIG Ryan Smith - 20.75
BIG Ryan charging to a 5th place finish at Albuquerque's Alamosa Skatepark, a must if you are in town.
After the race was the awards ceremony for all the races held that week. Will Brunson, who took 1st at Indian School, was awarded a killer wooden indian mask mounted up with trucks and wheels. He's won I.S. 3 out of the last 4 years and he displayed it with pride. After the awards, everyone was heading back out to Palmer's for a wild night of skating and drinking but we of the Days Inn crew were beat and happy to head back to the hotel for much discussion on the week and and some night-capper beers. We had to head home the next day and talked about heading out early to get back to the town where all those pools awaited us but we weren't leaving town until we'd both had a couple more runs down the Indian.
So mellow and peaceful looking, to look at it you would hardly think it would be so easy to die here. At the starting line, very top. Photos: Stubbs
The next morning we were both sore, tired and not really looking forward to the drive back home. After some breakfast we headed up to Indian School one last time for a couple of runs. I took one and I think Ryan took 2 and we were done. Neither one of us had any more to give at that moment and headed back to the hotel to shower up and check out. We said our goodbyes to the Days Inn Crew, Mollica heading back to Ohio, Mitchell and Fadell north to Colorado where there was another race later that week. Ryan and I got on the road and talked along the way about everything that had transpired over the week. We told each other we would be getting serious with our conditioning and be better prepared mentally and physically for the race next year as we pushed our hands further down into the bag of Chips Ahoy cookies. Training could wait at least until we got back to Texas. A few hours went by and we came to our turn off that would take us to the town of many pools we had discovered but as we talked we realized that neither one of us had it in us to even look for a bucket with which to bail. We decided to wait and make another trek back this way specifically for them some time in the future. We were dead tired and wanted to keep driving. When we arrived in Amarillo we made our way to the skatepark to meet up with Tim Kirby of Midland, Texas fame. He had taken his son Jake to a contest there and we were going to session with them before we got back on the road. Tim had just left when we pulled into the parking lot. I got out of the car and Ryan was looking in the trunk at all that wet skate gear and he asked if I was going to skate. "Hell, no. I got nothin' for this place." Ryan slammed the trunk and said "Good! Me either." We went in and took a look around anyway, came back to the car and made sandwiches and got back on the road.
Rollin' outlaw style, Indian School Photo: Steve Flusche
As we drove the rest of the way back to Dallas talking about what we had experienced, the temperature kept rising along with the humidity. Before we knew it we were depressed. Not to be coming back to Texas but to have left all that beautiful terrain behind. It's one of those places you're sort of afraid to leave because you worry it might not be there next time you want to go back. We also talked about the different people we skated with. These people are fixtures that Albuquerque would not be the same without: First off, all the crazy ABQ locals including The Marshall and Palmer. The killer race that they put on year after year is without a doubt the best. To quote Big Ryan on the Indian School OUTLAW: "It's the Superbowl/World Series/INDY 500 of skateboard races." These two place cones with speed in mind and push riders to their limits and their hospitality is unmatched. Others that I need to mention in the ABQ crew are Ryan E.P., Lowry, Will Brunson, Timeship Joe Lehm, who puts on DitchSlap, and the entire Timeship Racing Crew. Also, Abe Towery, David Price, David Angelus, Jeff "Where the hell are the shirts?" Ramos and even Cody Raver. Cody can annoy the hell out of you but I gotta give credit where it's due as he stepped it up this year with a 5th place finish at I.S. The seemingly constant fixtures of Mollica, Fadell and Mitchell, our Days Inn crew. Great people who deserve the wins they take because they work for them and believe me, each of them has a shot at 1st at any race they show. Their WIN column speaks for itself. All the Sector 9 crew of Budro, Lange, Noah, Billy Greene and E.G. I wish I could convey to all of you as to how much Sector 9 pours into Indian School and skateboarding in general each and every day. Good on you, 9 Ball! The Florida crew of Kelly Lynn and Chuck Dinkins. Also, Farid A. Abraham, the photog who makes the trek out every year. Thanks to all of you for making Albuquerque and the Indian School OUTLAW such a great thing.
And then our talk turned to Texas and who else we could get to help represent in New Mexico with us next year. Ryan represented big time and I know we'll both be back next year. I can't envision a year going by in my life without at least one visit to Albuquerque but we were both hoping to have many more Texans in the mix next year, for sure. I hope we do. And you certainly don't have to be from Texas to do this. Whoever you are reading this no matter where you live, make it to Albuqerque.
As we pulled into my driveway about 9:00 pm, I was ready to hit the sack but we had to load Ryan's truck and he had to get back on the road to begin the last leg of his journey back to Austin, hepped up on SoBe NO FEAR and road snacks.
Skating Albuquerque is something everyone that owns a skateboard has to do in their life. It has changed the way I look at skateboarding. It's a savage place filled with savage people and savage terrain. It is the wild west. Skating in Albuquerque makes you a better skater. The challenges and rewards that await you there are like no other. I suggest you get a big board, some soft wheels and some stable trucks and make the journey to skate-mecca yourself. No one reading this is getting any younger and your time is ticking away. It's our greatest enemy, time. Plan your trip to Albuquerque now, it is your duty for the future. Do it now and I'll see you there next year.
-Stubbs
VIDEOS -
by Kenny Mollica "Indian School OUTLAW weekend"
Stubbs at Kate's Nips ditch filmed by BIG Ryan Smith
Indian School run of John Huey and Robin McGuirk filmed by "Shaner"
DitchSlap by Timeship Racing
Author's note: I wrote this story a few months back and it originally appeared in my bro ROnNy RIpPeR's DIEHARD Skatezine #7, produced here in Dallas. It is just a story of a road trip to Albuquerque, something I do every year. The story is centered around me and my road trip counterpart Ryan Smith from Austin and his (our) quest to ride what we consider the gnarliest skateboard race on the planet. Along with that is Albuquerque as seen through my eyes. There is so much more to tell than what I have written in these few paragraphs. I have never posted it online until now and I know it is long but I think you will enjoy it, at least I hope you did. Just keep in mind that nothing you just read can truly prepare you for what you will find with your own personal journey to Albuquerque. The pictures and video you see are also lacking in sufficient description, other than to get your skate loins flowing with passion. I have embellished nothing. Sooooo, men (and women), pack your bags now!
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