The picture is by Steve Keenan and shows Eric Dressen at Stone Edge Park in Florida.

News In Brief

• Grosso’s moved up to San Jose.
• Christian now has a ramp in his garden right in the middle of gnag-land LA. When Tim Payne was building it there was a drive-by shooting.
• Joe Lopes is ripping real hard again and is now riding for Airtool.
• Ross Goodman has just placed first in the Western Regionals amateur while Justin Jerrard got first in the street.
• The Pro Finals are going ahead atSt Petersburg, Florida on Decemebr 16th and 17th.
• San Jose is meant to be getting public parks and Mike McGill has just opened up a park in his home state of Florida.
• To end a few rumours, Christian Hosoi is still with Santa Cruz, Danny Way is still with H Street and Circle A have a new backer and are still in business.

Back in The USA

Back again after a little time off from doing my page while I went on my travels. The raddest place I’ve ever been was an indoor park in Brisbane, Australia, called The Skate Shed: they have the most amazing square wooden bowl, built by skaters who have built boats. More of that soon if we get pictures.
I picked up a virus in Melbourne which I got diagnosed back here in good old San Jose. It’s called Pericarditis (basically the muscles around my heart were swollen) — if I’d gone to the two Texan contests it might have proved fatal, but I certainly wasn’t on my death-bed in hospital, contraryto rumours. I’ll be back skating soon.

There have been no vert Pro contests in America since Vans until now. Bod has been dominating: 3rd in Australia and two 2nds in Texas. There was a big contest in Japan and I talked to a couple of skaters who went. “It was the worst organised contest and the worst ramp and street areas: both only had one layer of ply and boards were going through them.” But there was excellent money: $7,000 for first in each event, so Christian walked away with $14,000. There was really bad judging: I was told Tom Knox won street, but he got third place. The same person who said it was the worst organised also said it was the funnest comp he’d ever been to as well. Everyone just drank.

[More of this may appear in due course, but at the moment everything on this site is re-typed…]