Resurrection of Ramona

Skating is serious business these days. There’s big money, stiff competition and….

No, that’s bullshit. Skateboarding is as rad as it’s ever been. Thanks to guys like Darren, skateboarding is still 100% about having fun with your homies. And what do you do when your homies are 1000’s of miles away? You fly them into town, put them up in your place, feed em’ beers and session an amazing ramp in the middle of the desert. I don’t know that it gets more skateboarding than that.

I started my Saturday in typical skateboard weekend fashion: kick fiends off my couch, skate down the street for breakfast, drink mimosas, go to the liquor store, throw on my Redskins’ attire, and drive on out to the shin dig.

I rolled up Pine St and I could see the monster sized U-track surrounded by the dead shells of hot rods and other classic cars. We parked, grabbed the cooler, and made our way in past the gate-keepers. I wasn’t skating due to injury but I did get snaked by Hosoi when I tried to hit the crosswalk button. He’s a sly one….

After faking it’s own death, the Ramona ramp came back to life last week and it didn’t take long to fill the decks up with some of the most fun loving skateboarders on the planet. Guys typically doing 720s and nollie flip variations were slaying the ramp with long crail slides and face high indy airs.

Navs

Evandro Menezes

If you couldn’t tell by the photos, everyone was 100% on their game doing things their way. I don’t think I saw one person repeat their run during the entire jam. Just pure, fun orientated ripping. Darren knows how to keep the scenery proper so the place was covered in green, black and white everything, classic cars, and leggy pin up girls pimping out Skeleton Key gear. It was a full workday of nonstop ripping for over 8 hours. There were 3 bands, one of them had masks, one of them had a song dedicated to people that used to skate.

As the sun fell behind the rolling hills of Ramona, people lurking in the cab of the old car on the deck were asked to move, lend a hand, and get that thing flush with the coping. With the bulk of the crowd totally gassed a few lone guys continued the onslaught. Carlos from Buffalo stoked everyone out with a nosepick/stalefish bomb drop off the hood into the ramp. Chris followed up with a textbook crailslide first or second try and Dave Allen got his noggin rocked while trying a backside nosepick. Despite the slam he still won first place.

Thanks to the beer from Saint Archer I’m not exactly sure what happened that day. All I know is I was there, I was heckling, and I had as much fun as one could have being injured. Sunday was painful though…

Ramona ramp needs skatelite. The skatelite was on loan. Consider a small donation http://www.gofundme.com/gfxgto

Check out pics of the rebuild here http://carampworks.com/rumble-ramona-vert-ramp/

Article by Packy Fancher & Dan Sparagna

Images by Dan Sparagna.

10-25-14