Danny Way, who started on the pole position in Saturday’s Toyota Grand Prix Celebrity Pro and lead the celebrities the entire race, crashed in the final lap with a little help from the Disney Channel’sRaven Symone. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t happy about it, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.
I got robbed,” said the skateboarding great, who will certainly take some heat from fellow X-Gamers and previous Pro/Celebrity Race winners Bucky Lasek and Dave Mirra. “I worked hard to get the best lap. It’s not my fault that effort was taken away. Everyone knows if she didn’t crash that I would have won.”
Even though Danny turned in the fastest lap time of the day (faster even the Al Unser Jr.) it was Keanu Reeves, who was able to avoid the crash and cross the finish line for the win. Yep, that’s racing.
This is old news to anyone who follows Tony Hawk on Twitter, but last night he casually tweeted that a sports museum that he had loaned some memorabilia to had just gone bankrupt and the court wanted him to pay $1,500 to get his stuff back. Apparently, his stuff was being treated as an asset.
Today, CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell blogged about the tweet today and added a little detail:
We’re not 100 percent sure, but we think Hawk is talking about the Sports Museum of America, a national sports museum that was based near Wall Street and was actually open for seven months before shutting down in February. . .The museum’s parent company filed for bankruptcy the following month with $56 million in assets and $177 million in debt. The museum was displaying Hawk’s second-place trophy from a 1979 youth skateboarding competition.
Hopefully, Tony will get his trophy back. He won it once already and he shouldn’t have to win it again.
Entrepreneur magazine checks in with the raddest businessmen on the planet: Ryan Sheckler, bmxer Dave Mirra, and Paul Rodriguez to see how things are hanging. From Sheckler’s “Ferrari F430 parked outside,” to Mirra’s “multimillion-dollar business” to P.Rod’s “shoe boutique” the magazine makes it look like getting paid isn’t so bad afterall.
“I’m a skateboarder,” Sheckler says. “I’ll always be just a skateboarder. But I have these awesome opportunities that I’ll never let go by. It started with skateboarding. It’ll end with skateboarding. The things I do in between are my choice. The haters can say what they want, and the people who are my friends can realize what I’m doing and realize the empire I’m building for myself, and tag along and have some fun.”
Tony Hawk joined Hilary Duff, Jessica Biel, and Slash to remind people that getting involved and sharing your time is a good thing. Here’s a little of what Tony says:
I believe everyone can change the world you don’t have to be rich and famous, you can start in your own community: start locally. Help people that are in need. Help causes that interest you. . . .A lot of people want to help or say that there are these problems, but you have to physically go there and do it and that’s what makes a difference.
Slash obviously had a hard time being on camera without his guitar, but Tony’s comments were right on.
On April 22, 2009 iPath employees along with surf and skate teams will be joining up with the DBC Ride Shop, Sambazon, Soleo Sunscreen and the Boys & Girls Club of San Clemente on a day-long event in celebration of Earth Day.
Beginning at approximately 10 AM, the Turf & Surf crew will meet at San Clemente’s Ralph’s Skate Court to pick-up trash in and around the park. Following the cleanup, the crew on hand from IPATH will hang around for a quick skate session with anyone in attendance. . . After cleaning up the skatepark, the Turf & Surf participants will make their way over to San Clemente’s North Beach for a beach cleanup. If the waves are good, some of IPATH’s surf team may make their way out into the water too. . . “Earth Day gives us a reminder that we should all be doing our part in helping to maintain and preserve what’s around us,” said IPATH’s Dave Smith. “Even though skateboarding typically takes place in an urban setting, skaters are still affected by the environment around them. From trash laying around a park to garbage on the beach, if we all participated a little, we’d have a big change in the end.”
Nice event for a good cause, and seriously has Ohio Dave ever sounded more eloquent? [click to continue…]
Yes, there is an action sports hierarchy. And here is YoBeat’s Nick Lipton version (with a little help from Robbie Sell).
Obviously we cannot consider snowskaters, kite boarders, skibladers, or any of those other silly make-believe sports into our equation. Including such activities could lead us into the troubled waters of soap shoes, heelies, and other gimmicks that should have never been invented.
For the rest of Nick’s entertainingly navel gazed explanation of where we all line up follow the link. . . if you have a little time that needs killing.
Looks like our annual trips to the California Wine Country are going to get a lot more fun really soon as Grindline seems to be speeding along on the new St. Helena Skatepark. Nothing better than a little Erna Schein and a frontside grind to make the trip much more palatable.
etnies teamed up with the Los Angeles Mission today to hook up 2,000 men, women, and children on LA’s ski row with a hot meal and a brand spankin’ new pair of etnies kicks.
“In these tough economic times, there is more reason than ever to help those in need and give back to the causes that touch your heart – for me this is the Los Angeles Mission,” said etnies owner Pierre Andre Senizergues (pictured right). “For over 10 years my team and I have donated thousands of shoes to the homeless on Skid Row and this year will be no different. Not only because the need will be greater, but because it is this small contribution that can make a difference in someone’s life.”
And this isn’t something etnies is doing simply because the action footwear market sucks right now. They do this every year. Over the past ten years, etnies has given away more than 25,000 pairs of shoes to homeless people living in Los Angeles. And that is called giving back.
After all Tony Hawk’s recent twittering about going to Ireland and flying with his baby on the plane, and dropping free decks out all over the world, we never figured out what Tony and family were actually doing in Ireland. Not, that is until we were perusing Celebrity Baby Blog. Only then did we learn that Mr. Hawk was in Ireland to accept a prestigious award.
Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk poses with wife Lhotse Merriam Hawk and daughter Kadence Clover, 9 months, on Friday in Ireland. . . In the country to accept the James Joyce Award from the Literary and Historical Society of the University College Dublin, Tony skated with students at the school after receiving the honor.
The award is given to “those who have achieved outstanding success in their given field.” Tony joins Monty Python’s Micahel Palin, Writer Salman Rusdie, UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, politician Jesse Jackson and Tony’s business partner Will Ferrell (among others) on the list of winners. We don’t believe it possible to come up with a more eclectic bunch. But congratulations, Tony.
As if the Maloof family isn’t doing enough for skateboarding with their annual $450,000 prize purse Maloof Money Cup at the Orange County Fairgrounds, they’ve also a foundation called The Maloof Skateboarding Assistance Foundation which appears to be run by a “foundation management” company based in Las Vegas, Nevada called Coaching Charities.
According CoachingCharities.com The Maloof Skateboarding Assistance Foundation is a “501(C)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing support to professional skaters who suffer catastrophic injuries arising from skateboarding events.” In a USA Today story Joe Maloof explained the background for the charity.
“There’s tremendous risk in these contests,” he says. “They’re performing tricks that only the world’s top athletes have the ability to complete. We had a duty to take the lead in taking care of our own. . . “These aren’t just kids. There are a few 15- or 16-year-olds, but most are ages 19 to 35, the same age range as NBA players.”
Do people really care about skateboarders? At the Maloof Family of companies they do. And if they can get some tax relief at the same time, even better.
