The Arizona "We'll Make You Famous Tour" []

[Louie Baur]

First off we would like to wish you a happy 4th of July and here is the photos 
from the Arizona Tour



This trip had 6 different companies involved in it and went from Northern to 
Southern Arizona to support the local skateshops. We did demos for the shops at 
4 different locations. 



The text is below and the pictures can be found here

http://www.s453.net/dbm83/l.php?3905&379858



The night before we left we went and picked up Collin Provost on Wednsday Night 
and we skated his mini ramp for an hour or so before we hooked up with the rest 
of the crew and headed off to flagstaff. The pictures from that can found mixed 
in with the day one pictures.

  

 

Day 1 - Flagstaff, Arizona 

So the plan was for everybody to meet around 3am and to get to flagstaff for 
the first demo at 11am. I had a few people crash over at my place and we kicked 
back and played xbox for a few hours until we headed to the shop at 1:30am. 
Some people where waiting and for the next hour everybody else trickled in 
including King Channitta. 

The van was so packed and people looked really uncomfortable but it was time to 
go skate not be comfy so the sardine can tour was underway. Keith from Fourth 
World Clothing was driving his f-150 and towing the trailer and i was driving 
the van. Once we got past barstow on the way to needles, the sun started to 
rise and this is where I realized I was really tired. To bad it took 3 and a 
half more hours to get to flagstaff!!



We located Focus Boardshop in downtown flagstaff easily enough and made plans 
to go to Bushmaster Skatepark. I had been here about 5 years ago and from what 
I could remember it was pretty decent. Well my memory doesnt server me very 
well because the park wasnt really that fun and had some issues. The bowl was 
unskateable as you would for sure loose your speed eventually and the pyramid 
was to steep in the street course. The kids made it work good enough and we got 
some shots either way.



We bailed Bushmaster and headed over to locate the hotel room. Damn I hooked it 
up $44.00 per room for a suite at the amerisuites! We got 4 rooms and everybody 
was pretty happy that they could stretch out. I hope the Prescotty Valley Motel 
is somewhat similar. I took a quick nap and around 3:30 we all headed over to 
the Fox Glenn Skatepark for the last demo. Fox Glenn Rocks! The bowled section 
and the street section are so far away from eachother you cant see them its 
awesome! The are connected by a corridor with a series of hips - kind of a 
snake run if you will. The demo was much better here, there was a big turnout 
of kids which was good and after a few hours we got into a huge product toss 
which left everybody there nice and happy!!



Its Friday morning now and I am just completing my little writeup and we dont 
have to skate until Cottonwood at 5pm. I think we will try to cruise around and 
see if we can locate some street stuff or maybe go back to that other park.. 



Day 2 - Cottonwood, Arizona 

Right after I left kinko's for my first update I located a little gap and a 
rail to ollie over so I grabbed a few of the guys and asked them if they where 
intersested. Daryll, Collin, Jason, Joey and Tom where game so we headed back 
over. Collin ended up being the only one to land any thing here and we got a 
few pics of that. Then it was off to Burger King to grab some grub and start 
figuring out what to do for that day. We decided to head down to Cottonwood 
through Sedona so we could take in a few sites before the next demo. It was a 
pretty short drive down the windy road to Sedona and that place is pretty 
bitchen! We grabbed a few pictures there and continued down to Cottonwood to go 
find the Sidewalk Skater. We arrived there way to early like at about 1am and 
we needed to find something to do for 4 hours until the demo started. After 
chilling in the sidewalk skater and watching a few videos we decided to grab 
some food and then go down to the river. Well we arrived at the 
 river in Cottonwood and everybody was laughing their asses off it was an 
overglorified stream! I was so damn hot that i just layed down in it and got 
some water on me. It seemed that nobody else shared my enthusiasm in this 
venture and the crew wanted to get he hell out of there. 

  

We headed on back to Sidewalk Skater and some of the kids where starting to 
roll in so we started the demo a little early. Sidewalk Skater has an 8 ft tall 
mini ramp and some street stuff next to it so we ripped it up. Tony Cervantes 
just learned backside tailslides on that ramp earlier on that day so that was a 
cool trick to see him through down for sure. Collin Provost and Justin Gordon 
where throwing down every mini amp trick in the book and Jarret Berry, Pat 
Chanitta and Donovan Dresti where also on the ramp. After about an hour of 
skating we started doing some raffles and giveaways. Helena hooked us up with a 
bunch of food and one of the things she brought out where deviled eggs. We 
decided to have a devil egg eating contest between three kids which then turned 
into a eat as much stuff as you can contest with one goal in mind which was 
seeing who could puke first. Unfortunatly puking never really happened but it 
was funny seeing these guys eat everything in sight and the
 y got a good food supply for the next few days. 

Once the demo winded down we headed over to Cottonwood Skatepark to roll around 
that for a little while. It got dark on us pretty quickly so we fired up the 
generator and lit up one of the hips. This session lasted for about an hour and 
a half and the Cottonwood kids got to see some first hand night generation and 
they where stoked on that. It was now 10pm and time to start heading to 
Prescott Valley to find our hotel. We took the road through Jerome, AZ which is 
a mountain town and it was like a scene out of an italian movie. The roads 
where narrow and went right through the middle of town. It looked like a pretty 
cool place to go visit for sure! We arrived in Prescott Valley at about 11:15pm 
and where greeted by our contact there with 7 pizzas so that was awesome. We 
were all pretty beat, had a few beers and went to bed early because we were 
going to be in a parade the next day.



Day 3 Prescott Valley, Arizona

Have you ever got 19 tired skateboarders up at 8:30 am and told them to sit on 
a flat bed trailer for a parade? I hadnt to that point and it was happening! 
The city of Prescott Valley and Wood on Wheels Skateshop where putting on the 
demo at the park and the parade was part of the Prescott Valley Days deal that 
they do every year to pump up the carnival and other events. We hopped on this 
trailer behind a monster truck driven by some dude named Joe and moved to our 
position in line in the parade. We were float number 33. We sat in the hot ass 
sun for about an hour before the parade got under way and before you knew it we 
where going down the main streets of Prescott Valley promoting skateboarding! 
We were behind a few horses that kept shitting on the road so as we skated 
around the float we had to dodge horse shit which was a first for me. It was 
actually pretty cool, we handed out stickers and candy to all the kids lined up 
along the parade path and got to goof off quite a b
 it. When you are getting towed and not paying attention your board gets really 
close to the wheels of the trailer and both Collin Provost and Justin Gordon 
got to close to the wheels of the trailer and got their boards ran over. The 
trailer was only going about 5 miles per hour so nobody got hurt up to this 
point and there was no damage to the boards. Once we got through the parade we 
where driving down the road at about 30 miles per hour and Justin Gordon was 
screwing around with his ass on the trailer and feet on his board doing 
powerslides and stuff like that when all of a sudden we lost Justin. Apparantly 
shuvits at 35mph dont work to well and Justin fell off the trailer and hit the 
ground! We stopped the trailer and went back to pick him up. He got pretty 
jacked up, ripped a pretty good sized hole in his hand and got a pretty big 
swelbow as well. This I would have to say was one of the funniest things I have 
ever seen in my life and even though Justin was pretty battere
 d up he got a good laugh out of it as well.



We cruised back to the hotel room to get out of the sun for a few hours and to 
rest up for the demo that was going to take place at the Prescott Valley 
Skatepark at 1pm. Once we arrived at the demo the park was hopping and tons of 
people where there. We mixed in with the locals and skated with them for awhile 
and when the smash up derby factor was to high we cleared out the park for our 
guys. There were a couple of different things the guys where hitting at this 
park and there was alot of good skating going on. At one point I saw a kid with 
the Transworld Am Issue that is out now and told him that Collin Provost had a 
2 page Split Clothing ad in there. I got the kid to go to Collin and get him to 
sign it and then everybody went to their cars to get their mags and get him to 
sign it. Seems like kids like to get autographs from people in magazines. I 
looked over and saw Pat Chanitta busy signing autographs as well. At this time 
I would like to thank Pat for coming along, squeez
 ing in our packed van and being a part of the trip. That guy is cool as shit 
and ripped all the parks we went to!! Thanks Pat:-) We went back to the hotel 
and we didnt have to do anything until the next morning so it was time to get 
some rest. After about a 4 hour nap me and a few of the boys headed on over to 
Whiskey Row in downtown Prescott and tore it up at a few bars. Many Kamikazee 
shots later somebody thought it would be a good idea to hit the nasty ass strip 
club called Pinyon Pines so we headed on over there. This place is probably the 
worst strip club that I ever went to, when we walked in there was a chick on 
stage with a gut the size of mine so I knew this was going to be interesting.  
We got hooked up nicely there due to the cocktail waitress being at the 
skatepark a few hours earlier, she made sure we got in for free and got good 
priced drinks. A few of us got lap dances and nobody paid over $5 for them if 
this gives you any idea of what a classy establishment t
 he place was. Bars close at 1am in Arizona which is a good thing because we 
needed to call and end to the night and get some sleep for the massive amount 
of driving that was in store for us the next day.





Day 4 Marana, Arizona

We woke up at about 9:30 today so we could head on down to Phoenex to meet the 
owner of Option Skateshop. It was pretty narly getting everybody up and into 
the van because the day before I had told them they could sleep in. Oh well 
shit happens and plans change. We arrived in Phoenix at around noon and cruised 
into Option Skateshop to go meet those guys and hang out a little bit. 
Afterwards we hit the Gameworks there for a few hours and had a bunch of fun 
there. We played that basketball game with 6 people instead of 2 and the balls 
kept getting stuck up there so we kept sending Tony up onto the court to get 
our game going again. Gotta love that 3 hour unlimited card for $20, with 2 of 
those we where all set. 



After we left Phoenix the second stupidest thing of the trip happened. I pulled 
into Chevron to get gas and after having a temper tantrum because it was so 
hot, I managed to get the nozzle of the gas pump stuck in the van. The gas 
attendent said she had never seen that happen before and had no solution for me 
to get it out. I suggested driving off and ripping it out of the van but 
somebody told me that would probably damage the van. They ended up calling some 
dude to come out and force the nozzle out of the van. I had to sign a waiver to 
let him do this and it was pretty much a big hassle but funny at the same time. 
After an hour delay we where on the road to Marana, AZ where Coyote Skateshop 
is located. We arrived at Coyote and Scott had a bunch of drinks ready for us 
which was kinda nice. We relaxed for about an hour and headed on over to the 
park. Marana is pretty desolate so we didnt expect much but the park was 
located in a huge new housing development on the hill and th
 ere were quite a few people waiting for us. I did my usual "Pat Chanitta is in 
the house" announcement and the demo was on. Darryl Weaver was hitting 
noseslides down the hubba, jarrett, jason, pat, collin and donovan tore the 
pyramid apart and justin was working the half pipe area. We skated for about an 
hour and a half and had our last huge product throw session and it looks like 
most everybody cruised out of there with something. After that wound down some 
of the guys went over to the basketball court to take on mini Kobe and some of 
the other locals. The seemed to do pretty well but I think they still got 
smoked! After this Scott invited us to a friends house to cool off in the 
swimming pool and get some bbq going. I went swimming, did some chicken 
fighting, throwing the football at peoples heads and normal pool activities, 
ate some food and took a two hour nap to rest up for the drive home. We took 
the 8 freeway home and it was an agonizing 9 hour drive and once again we
  saw the sun rise in the middle of the desert. We arrived back at Vksports and 
9am, took a final picture and everybody parted ways. Finally it was all over:-) 



This trip had a bunch of different people involved and here is the list



Vksports sent Louie Baur and Amanda Wheeler 

Master Image Customs - sent Jason Martinez&Justin Gordon 

Pat Channita was there representing Powell, Bones bearings, Mountain Dew, 
Independent, Ally Co., Dragon, Go Urethane, Guerilla Union 

Fourth World Clothing towed the trailer and sent Tony Cervantes, Matt Gallardo, 
Ray Yanez, & Mike Massaro 

Cowboy Punk sent Joey Marshall & Jarret Berry 

Oakley sent Jason Martinez&Collin Provost 

ThirdChoice sent Darrell Weaver   

Underworld Skateboards sent Donovan Dresti 

We got product for the trip from these companies 

Unleashed Clothing Dragonetti Wheels ADD Jokers Rails Sullen Clothing nomadik 
clothing Red Bull Girl Skateboards Dirtbag Clothing Flowlab Skateboard Hanger 

8&9 Shortys Skateboards 

 





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