Up, Up, and Away: Final Roster for Megaramp Skate Contest Decided

Aug 06 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

Bob Burnquist, Rob Lorifice, and Bucky Lasek qualified today to join Danny Way and Andy Macdonald on the Megaramp tomorrow.

Omar Hassan missed the cut, but by going for big tricks and taking big risks, he made an even more important point about the essence of these sports: When asked why he didn’t just play it safe to make the cut, Hassan said, “Skateboarding is not about trying to be consistent. It’s about trying to push the limit.”

If you’ve only seen it on TV or read about it on your favorite action sports website, believe it: The Megaramp is enormous. Being on the ramp at all is pushing the limit, and the roll-in alone is enough to weed out the crowd and set the elite skaters apart from everybody else. Sure enough, tomorrow’s contest lineup reads like a who’s who of the very best – and very biggest – in skateboarding. Lorifice is by far the youngest of the competing skaters, but has just as much experience on the Megaramp as anybody except Danny Way, who first envisioned the ramp design and made the dream a reality.

PHOTO GALLERY Check out Andy Macdonnald and  the X Games 12 Men's Skate Street and Big Air Practice.  VIEW GALLERY >

I'd seen a few half-hearted attempts during practice yesterday and watched Macdonald, Chris Miller, and even Tony Magnusson messing around on the lower half of the ramp to bank down and play on the big quarter-pipe but this was something new. Although I've been writing about the Megaramp for the last month, today was the first time I've seen anybody really going for it in person: Burnquist showed me how it's done with a backside 180 over the gap that, upon closer inspection, was actually switch. With Burnquist, the distinction is sometimes hard to discern, but switch drop-ins from 9 stories up is another thing altogether. Lorifice pulled a nice 360 tail grab over the 60 foot gap and a kickflip on the quarter, and Bucky Lasek made the cut with a frontside 360 gap jump and a big heel flip on the back end.

Last night's Best Trick contests were about as good as it gets at the X Games, but we're looking forward to tomorrow too: Each skater will get five jumps, and there's no telling what guys like Way, Macdonald, and Burnquist might have up their sleeves. Macdonald was working on back flips yesterday, and Burnquist hucked a few front flip attempts after today's selection contest.

If the riders are taking requests, we have a perfect Megaramp trick in mind for Andy "Benihana" Macdonald, whose silhouetted signature benihana graphic for Airwalk has become skateboarding's equivalent of Michael Jordan's "Jumpman" logo: The time has come for the first ever Backihana. There's plenty of hangtime to pull one off, and we think it could be a winner. It's a longshot, but if it happens, remember where you first heard the idea. On a ramp like this, the sky is the limit.

– Colin Bane