Tony Hawk is the biggest name is skateboarding history and has won 74 professional skateboard contests of the past 20 years. Tony Hawk has invented 90 skateboard tricks and continues to bust through new boundaries with his million dollar vert ramp.

When Tony Hawk first started skateboarding back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, there was either vert skateboarding which was pools or freestyle skateboarding. There was no street skateboarding which dominates the industry today. Pools eventually evolved into half pipes and the very first half pipes where very hard to skate. The were made out of Plexiglas and had little or no flat bottom and no decks to stand on. You just kind of got in there and tried to hit the coping. Tony Hawk spent many a day skating the Del Mar Skate Ranch and once that closed down he ended up getting some land in Fallbrook and built a massive ramp.

His father Frank Hawk supported Tony very heavily and it must have been cool to have a dad like that. When you are a vert skateboarder pads are a necessary. You cannot bust out a 540 or even a 360 on a vert ramp for the first time with out relying on your pads to knee slide out on so you can get up and try again until you land it. Today vertical skateboarding is not very popular probably because it is so difficult. There are very few newcomers to the Vert Skateboarding scene but with the big boom of skate parks that where built over the last 10 years kids are learning to be more well rounded skateboarders and are able to hit vertical walls now in addition to hitting the rails and ledges that grace the pages of every skateboard magazine on the market. Long live vert skateboarding this is my favorite genre of skateboarding.

I have been writting skateboarding articles for awhile now and have been out with a back injury for about 6 months. The back is feeling better now so I decided to go down to the Costa Mesa Skatepark and see how my body was feeling. Damn I was like a kid in a candy store that little bowl at the Costa Mesa Skatepark is so damn fun!

Here is a clip of me rolling around, carving a few corners and doing a few lip tricks to top it off. I am no Tony Hawk but who is except for Tony Hawk. A very fun day and I actually got some exercise which is always a good thing.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, old and especially the young, and gaze upon the modern marvel of the world! The Birdman is both ringmaster and acrobatic wonder in a modern circus of extreme sport skill in an annual event that each summer blazes across the U.S. with a dazzling array of talent.

With his yen for long, clunky tour names and far-thinking ideas, the Boom-Boom Huck Jam is the brainchild of vert skating’s most visible rider, Tony Hawk. Combining the world’s most talented skateboard gymnasts with the nerviest BMX mavens and freestyle motocross maniacs that make Evol Knievel look tame, to create a choreographed symphony of flying daredevils that simply must be seen to be believed.

Tony Hawk has had a piece of nearly every major movement in extreme sports, redefining movement itself since the genesis of the original Bones Brigade nearly two decades ago. The inventor of over eighty original moves, the Birdman likes covering uncharted territory.

The first Huck Jam was a solo date in Sin City, Las Vegas, in 2002. Riding the lightening bikes, skateboards, and motorcycles all danced to the beats of The Offspring and Social Distortion. The rampage of riders was a huge success, and the Huck Jam has since grown to a national tour.

The portable ramp set is built like a rock-and-roll stage, featuring a long half-pipe with a motocross channel gap, so that motorcycles can jump over the skaters and bikers running tricks in perpendicular tandem. The result is a parade of launched grenades popping off in spectacular symmetry like a human fireworks show.

Tony Hawk’s Boom-Boom Huck Jam is an extravaganza of choreographed, multimedia challenges to gravity on every front. The Birdman and his elite team of riders are bound and determined to prove that Newton’s apple may have had to hit the dirt, but with a pair of wheels, an extreme rider doesn’t need to return to Earth until good and ready.

Today, the Huck Jam is a full-on concert/sports tour of the finest open-air venues, including amusement parks, sports stadiums, and expositions. The line-up includes some of the top names in wheeled leaping and landing, such as Jesse Fristch and Kevin Staab. In 2006, the Boom-Boom Huck Jam made an agreement with Six Flags Theme Parks to use their parks as venues for the cross-country tour.

Combining music with fast-paced vehicular mania is only natural, but bringing them together in a live extravaganza not only blurs the boundaries of spectator sport and arena concert, but represents a feat of engineering, booking and logistics as well as acrobatics.

The Birdman was born to take challenges head-on, however, and has assembled a star-studded team to do it with. This year’s Tony Hawk’s Boom-Boom Huck Jam’s roster includes Drake McElroy, Sergie Ventura, Kevin Robinson as well as celebrity MC services from Jason Ellis.

One thing is for sure-if you like excitement, hard-edged music, and the slickest freestyle artists in the game, the Boom-Boom Huck Jam is an event not to be missed.

Here is a video clip shot back in 2000 at an event called the Cybernet 2000 Festival. We brought out the Red Bull Vert Ramp and had Tony Hawk and Ryan Sheckler come out and do a little doubles skateboarding. I remember this day very well because it was the first day that I dropped in on the ramp and I ended up busting my elbow. I had to shoot this video clip with a busted elbow which sucked and needless to say that was the day my vert career ended and it was very short lived. Anyway Ryan was a little kid back then and he could skate vert pretty good. The ramp was very slick and and hard to skate but those guys ripped it up anyway. Until I rendered myself useless I was part of the set up crew for the vert ramp. Everything went so fast because it is all built out of steel and a forklift can move all of the heavy parts around with ease. The Red Bull ramp actually snaps together in 4 foot sections with the deck and coping. All of the transitions get connected on the ground and you just stand it up and pop it into place and this is all done in about 4 hours.

Streetstyle in Tempe NSA Pro-Am skateboard contest held at the Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Now remastered to DVD. Hosoi, Blender, Cab, John Lucero, Jesse Martinez, Rob Robskopp, Chris Cook, Lance Mountain, Tony Hawk, and many more.