Lake Charles: Four pm TODAY (click for larger version)

For more info, call Ripperz at 337.479.7581. Better hurry to Lake Charles!

If you know Hammond, you’ve seen “Little” Trey doing his business… he’s got the skills, and he’s got the nards to get the job done. Anyway, without getting into specifics, Trey managed to do a pretty harsh job of smashing some bones and meat up. A bunch of us have known Trey since forever, and we want him to get back to 100% and roll harder than ever. Heal up quick man, you have a lot of skating left to do.

These are the better ones I got today. I’m pretty sure Gregory will have some that exceed these by a million fold:

It has air shocks… you can drop this thing all the way until it scrapes. This truck was accompanied by two vans full of people you’ve seen if you’ve ever picked up a skate mag. We were stoked to have them over, and I’m pretty sure that this makes Chet’s bajillionth visit to Hammond. OK, enough talk… but I will say that I’m sorry if you missed out. All of these cats are nice as hell and amazing to watch…

Alex Olsen, hydrating.

Dave, Navs, Sammy Baca(foreground), Adam Alfaro (background), Braydon Szafranski.

Chet Childress, clean frontside over vert, on the cradle.

OK, not a trick pic, but Navs was hauling ass right here so this is sicker than some may realize.

Omar Hassan, Braydon, Chet.


Omar, came in clean, had no flatbottom (transition the whole way through), then charged through the “vert wall” portion of the bowl.

This is Omar asking Jeff Grosso for some advice on Sad Plants. Kenny Anderson in the background.

…may be at Dreamland as I write this.

OK, as of about 20 minutes ago, the guys were packing up and heading out. I have a handful of pics, as does Gregory. We got some footy, but we’re going to sit on that since the guys were filming a lot. No fear though, we’ll share the poached footage after they do what they need to do with what they got. We’ll let you know when their documentation of their time here is available… in photo and video form, as it comes out (should it).

Congratulations to Tim Buechele of Loranger & Wayne Gauthreaux of Hammond , the Winners of the final “Big Mike Raffle.” The two bought a total of 4 tickets, but as good friends they opted to double their chances by adding both names to all 4 tickets!

Tim is a skater from waaaay back, his first deck a GT model some 20-plus years ago! He parked his deck a long time ago, though, due to a left ankle blow-out and an addiction to Harley-Davidson motorcycles and building bikes. Tim is a regular at Dreamland Skatepark in the summer, supporting his 11 yr/old son’s passion for skating and has recently started trying to skate again with the help of an ankle brace.

Wayne has dabbled with skating on and off and also frequents Dreamland with his son Tyler, age 8. Wayne too has been caught “boosting” his son’s deck, but now he’ll roll with class!
Tim & Wayne both work at Hammond Harley Davidson.

Look out for the June 2008 issue of Slap… the cover looks lke this:

…turn to page 22, and notice the “GrimCity” part:

…that’s me, your friendly neighborhood Small Time Skates webgeek. The photo was take by Small Times’ very own Gregory Tracy (you may know of him as Dead Gregory). Anyway, I’m not putting a readable version of the article up yet because the magazine is currently on sale and we want you to go out and support the mag. They should be sold at anywhere where there’s tons of magazines.

Please write a comment and drop it on this page dedicated to a young ripper named Johnny Romano:
http://www.dlxsf.com/jr/2008/05/20/johnny-romano/

He just found out that a cancer that he thought he had beaten has decided to come back. Just click the link above, give the homie some props and support, and show him why skateboarders are the best people on the earth.

The official deadline to win this stuff is May 28. Come in, plunk down five bucks, and win the whole stash.

This is the very last Big Mike Raffle… come give it one last shot while there’s still time! Enter as may times as you can for better odds!

Before I leave you with that, here’s an edit I made off of some slightly older footage that has a good portion of Big Mike’s backyard ramp in it. We had shown up late, so we don’t have footy of him skating in this clip, but he had been ripping it the entire day before we showed up.

Anyway, please give this final raffle a shot. All of the funds will go directly to the Big Mike Trust, which will in turn go directly to Mike’s wife Darlene and son Erik (who also happens to be another skater to the bone).

Thanks.

My camera sucks, and I wasn’t able to get to the jam towards the end (when most of the folks had left, but there were still lots of people out)… the main reason I’m posting all my pics (the bad ones included) is to show everyone how incredibly bad ass our community is, and how insanely great the Big Mike crew is… they put this together, brought out a ton of food and drinks, and on this day, everyone rolled in honor of our friend. My ankle is blown out, but I felt so charged by the energy that everyone had Saturday that I bet my healing process is going to be faster than normal. Skaters and non skaters alike came together and showed some love. It doesn’t get any better than that. Here you go:

Stay tuned, as our very own Small Times’ Gregory took some much better pics earlier on when the jam was in full effect… as soon as he sends them over, I’ll have ‘em up on the site… his pics will give you a much better idea of how hectic and incredible the day was.

Here’s to you, Mike. Roll forever, brother.