Good to Go!

I’ve got a toothache, but I’m stoked. After getting a couple of my teeth ground, filled and capped, I’m heading to the airport. My first stop will be LAX, where I will meet up with the other members of the Pro Impact Stunt Team (Jeff Ferris, Billy Gawrych, Joe Tecca and Ommar Estrada) as we embark on a journey to Kingston, Jamaica. A couple of months ago, Jeff had been contacted by Gibbons Productions about bringing action sports demos to the Mountain Dew Stunt Festival in Jamaica. We assembled a well-rounded team in order to showcase the breadth and depth of skateboarding and BMX for the Jamaican people.

We met up at the airport, had a brief last American airport meal, and took the red eye to Jamaica. After a lazy, sleepy night, we landed in Montego Bay. Although we had a four-hour layover, it seemed longer, and after a morning of wanderings in the airport, we boarded the 40-minute flight to Kingston. Once in Kingston, we made out way to Customs and met up with our hosts, Linval Gibbons and Tesah Linton. Jeff, Joe and I breezed through Customs, but Billy and Ommar were detained. The government officials thought that they were Mexican Nationals, even though they held US Passports. We got our first view into the politics of the land, and with a bit of cash, work visas were purchased and we were free men in Jamaica. We made our way to find our bags (which had taken an earlier flight and were waiting for us, we should have been so fortunate), and with our gear intact, we boarded a bus and sped out of the airport towards destinations unknown.

The scenery was intense, beautiful, shocking, new and alive. The weather was warm (highs in the 80s, lows in the 70s), and the people looked extremely comfortable. The people drive their cars on the left side of the street, like the British, and most of the cars also have the steering wheel on the right side. We snapped photos out of the windows, hooting and hollering at one another, all of us surprised and stoked to actually be in Jamaica.

We made it to our new residence, the Christar Villas in New Kingston, where we were to set up shop for the coming week. It was a great location and perfect accommodations, with a kitchen, pool and shopping nearby. We were able to check out the TV, and found a commercial running within all of us on it, getting people ready to see the stuntmen at the Mountain Dew Stunt Festival. We were stoked! When we had deposited our bags, we were herded off to check out the demo sites. In Kingston, which would be the site of our Monday (4/12) shows, we had a rough parking lots and a grass field to choose from, either way, we knew we were going to have to build a stage. At our other demo site in Clarendon (shows on Saturday, 4/10), we were to be located on a court area that was very smooth and completely rideable. With this as the first event, so we also had some time to figure out the staging of the Kingston event.

As we traveled into the country toward Clarendon, which was about 1 hour drive outside of Kingston, we traveled through the ghettos. I have been all around the US, Canada, Mexico and across Europe, but I had never seen anything like this at all, and I think the team shared the same observation. Houses built out of tin lined the neighborhoods, with crowds of people staring into our cars at every turn. I was awed and shocked by the blaring music in each neighborhood, with stacks of speakers rhythmically bouncing the reggae beats. I felt like a little kid, with my head out the window and my mouth agape at the spectacle that was going on all around me.

With the demo sites all checked out, and each one posing its own unique set of challenges, we knew that the next day (Thursday, April 8) would come quick. We would then begin to build all the ramps, a process that would take us two full days. We headed back to our New Kingston home for the evening and a bit of rest before hitting it hard the next day.

Yeah, Mon!

In the morning after breakfast, we made our way to the Pepsi bottling plant, where we would build the ramps for the demos. We met up with the local crew, including Clinton and a number of Rastas, who would be helping us with building the ramps and setting the demo sites. We cut out the transitions and got right to work. The sun was hot and intense, and we worked throughout the day getting the ramps together. We were building a 8 foot quarter pipe (8 feet wide), 4 foot spine ramp (8 feet wide), 5 foot launch box (4 feet wide), 8 foot platform (8 feet wide), and a 12 foot landing ramp (8 feet wide). We also had one working drill and one working circular saw. Luckily, we had done the same thing last summer in Spokane, WA , so we knew that we could deliver and that we had been deeper. We worked well into dark, when the mosquitoes came out a biting, and we headed back to our humble abode for some dinner. After a meal of spaghetti and meatballs, and a few Red stripe beers, we crashed out in order to get ready to finish the ramps, and move them a ways up the road to Clarendon for the demos on Friday.

but wait, there's more! look below. . .

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