Warped Tour '99 & Vans Am Vert Contest
January 23, 1999

Place Waimanalo Polo Field (again)
Line-Up Suicidal and a bunch of crappy bands.
Skateboarders Mike Frazier, Steve Caballero, Omar Hassan, Brian Howard, Neal Hendrix
Other Worthy Events VANS AM Vert Competition, Hawaii Edition

To the Field
Never again. This year, even though the ramp was already built, it seemed to be a little harder to get the ramp up (See Warped Tour 98). Maybe because the 20 Easy Peices weigh in about 2 tons each, and with only a handful of help we (with the labor of love) move the ramp out there. Putting it up went quick, thanks to Tim Payne (Payne interview). For those of you that don't know this, he is the master. I mean we've built all kinds of shit. But this guy knows how to work and how to get these volunteers (that means they don't get paid, mahalo VANS) to work. Tim went above and beyond his call of duty, mahalo Tim. (Check out his shit at www.teampain.com). Taking it down was another story. This is where beer comes in handy. Mad props to Jeff Gaskell, Johnee Kop (Kop interview) and Keijiro for the labor and to Clint and his help. It was fucking hell, that's all.

To the event
A bomb, and not the hip-hop meaning either. Only about a third of the crowd this year. There is a reason why there was a third of people at this years Warped Tour compared to the premiere last year. Maybe because it sucks. I'm not sure what it was last year, maybe because it was new and it was a while since Hawaii seen that kind of Vert Skating. I don't know. Maybe there were more chicks last year. Maybe there were more deaths. Maybe it was a bunch of shit. All I know is that this year the lot was smaller, there was more parking, tcha, and less area. Less tents and a shitty line up of bands. I don't even want to name the bands because they were so fucking lame. You do not want to hear about the bands, anyway. You came to this gay-ass website because you are interested in one thing, the bellboy, and the bellboy says, "It's all about skateboarding."

Mike Frazier tweaking the hell out of every trick. Girls if you look closely you may be able to make out his package

To the ramp
The masonite we got this year was shit, it was so fucking bad that we left it at the Polo Field for the Nalo Leechers to scrap. It was slippery, but atleast there wasn't any fucking shitty as graffit on it like last year. Oh well, the skateboarding was rad. I think that Mike Frazier and Brian Howard were a bit thrown off by the Tim Payne's Elliptical Trannies. Yeah they weren't busting out like in the latest 411, but they fucking were rad. It was good to see lip tricks again. Howard and Frazier both did sick hurricane shits. Cab (Caballero interview) was killing it again with his patended tricks, with his stylish Evil Knievel TSG helm. Omar (Hassan interview) was rad, as always, sticking nice airs to fakie and hats off to him for pulling the only 540 in Hawaii since the last Warped Tour. Neal Hendrix (Hendrix interview) had some shoes to fill. The crowd wanted to see big airs, since Sergie (Ventura interview) was absent, Neal did all the airs for them.

To the pit

The mosh pit was nothing less than a cliche. Thirteen year old chicks gained instant coolness by playing pigs in the mud as crowd surfing became a favourite pasttime. Funniest shit was this kid Ray looking for his shoe from ontop the vert ramp. It seemed that he lost it in the pit. And every few seconds he could see his shoe fly in the air. He just wanted to keep an eye on it with the hope to reclaim it.

To the contest
The coolest thing about the event this year was the VANS AM Vert comepetition. Last year only a few local riders rode the 12ft ramp, mostly on account of the sheer size and intimidation factor. This year there were about 20 local riders. We held a free-jam style competition and the winner would be sent to the VANS WORLDS AM CONTEST at the new VANS Skatepark in Orange, CA in January 2000.

Everyone was ripping. It was good to see people from outer island come to skate. Maui Tom brought his boys, Vernon, Brendon , Chris C. and Robert M. They were ripping. The new vert ramp on Maui proved to be a well used facility, but I could tell the ellpitical trannies was a bit of a throw off. In practice everyone was ripping, but when push came to shuv and they were being judged only the strong survived. Top five was something like, fifth went to Alf Kondo (T&C) even though we wasn't as consistent as others he did bust ass and try some unique shit. Fourth to Rob Waldron (Local Motion) he skates the vert at Hickam a lot and he tried a few of his tricks here, he too couldn't seem to hang the elliptical tranny until it was too late, but he stayed on more than not and pulled off some difficult shit. Third went to Brendon Stevens from Maui, he was probably the most consistent throughout the entire contest, but he just didn't seem to stick the high airs or have a big a variety of tricks like the top two placers did. Second went to Dustin MacDonald (Volcolm) from Kauai. I don't really recall Kauai having a ramp for a while, but Dustin didn't care. He stuck all kinds of airs, left and right, but again he didn't have the variety needed to take first. Even though the last time he skated vert was at the WARPED TOUR 98 (last year), first place went to Robby Gaskell (Acme, Local Motion, DSO). He stuck some rad shit like 180 blunts and eggplants as well as backside smith grinds and airs. He also stuck on for the thick of it in the end, where it mattered. Look for Robby at the VANS Am WORLDS in Nov at the VANS Skatepark. He will be the nerdy looking fucker smiling all the time, even in the middle of a grind.

Vans Am Vert Ramp Contest Results 1st Robby Gaskell (Acme, Local Motion, DSO) 2nd Dustin Macdonald (Volcolm) 3rd Brendan Stevens 4th Rob Waldron (Local Motion, Arcade) 5th Alf Kondo (Town & Country) 6th Tom "Maui Tom" Miyao (Hi-Tech Maui) 7th Sam Clemens (Natural Koncept, 808 Skate) 8th Wade Abreu (Natural Koncept, Lazy Bones) 9th Vernon Neuhaus 10th John "Grinch" Luengen 11th Chris Kays (Volcolm, Lazy Bones) 12th Chris Cudlipp (Hi-Tech, Split) 13th Robert Musko

I don't know if it was my imagination but it seemed that the pros demoed less hours than last year. Both Brian Howard (left) and Neal Hendrix (right) made evey second count with huge indys and tail grabs.

So that was this years WARPED SHIT. It was cool. It wasn't as entertaining as last year. Maybe they needed to get a variety of bands or something. Maybe they needed Andy (JOCK) MacDonald (MacDonald interview) to do his robotic crowd pleasing lines or Sergie Ventura humming his 13ft crossbones and 360 varials. Albeit, this year was different and I enjoyed seeing the locals finally take a step up and compete on a real vert ramp. I'd like to see more vert skating come out of Hawaii and we don't need no stinking WARPED TOUR to bring that on. Oh and in case you were wondering, Ray did find his shoe by the end of the day, and they weren't VANS.

Related Article

Warped Tour Coverage 1998