For X-Games 2007, we had a prime executive suite in the Staples Center thanks to the fine people at EA Games and Vitaminwater in collaboration with MegaRamp. NBA star Barron Davis was cold chillin the whole night and other scenesters spotted were Danny Way, Rob Machado, David Spade, the executive management for Krew/Supra, Renee Renee, Adeeb from SurfIllustrated.com and more. Here is a few photos for everyone to check out.

Danny and Barron Davis:

Adeeb from www.SurfIllustrated.com:

Danny signed some boards for the kids:

Our view from the suite:

Stoked kids:

Suite-goers got to play EA’s new game “Skate” before it is released to the public:

Our friend Ronnie Creager has a great site up over at www.HappySkateboarding.com, and he was cool enough to mention our new song in his news last week. Check out the site and thanks Ronnie!

After cheating death on national TV, Jake Brown became America’s action sports hero overnight. Just think about the exposure this is bringing to our great sport of skateboarding. Here is a list of some of the appearances Jake and Danny made in the week after the gnarliest slam we have ever seen:

TV: Danny did the post-Skate MegaRamp X Center interview on Thursday night.

He did so well on that that they had him back on Sports Center the next night (straight after Barry Bonds) to talk about Jake.

Today show: There was a nice segment in the Monday breakfast 5 min Today show piece which showed Danny as the godfather of MegaRamp, showed the China Great Wall jump and had a Danny segment from the Sunday vert contest.

Jake did Larry King Live – 10 minute segment. Larry put on the Blind hat Jake gave him and they had a good time. The next morning (Thursday) he was on American Morning on CNN.

Jake appeared live on the Australian Today breakfast show (national TV) and also on national TV with Channel 10. He has done a host of phone interviews with various people as well.

August 8th, 2007: The morning started at Fuel where Danny, Jake, and PLG did an entire Daily Habit (half hour show) that aired the night of Monday, August 13th. They also confirmed Danny as the host of a half hour show on the forthcoming EA game Skate (which is shaping up to be a BIG hit release in the fall and in which Danny is front and center). That is shooting August 31 and will be out same time as the game. Fuel also wants to do a show on the history of MegaRamp. After that it was off to MTV News where they shot for over an hour. There are segments due to run on MTV News as well as much more comprehensive segments on line on MTV websites.

August 5th, 2007: Danny did 570 AM radio at X Games (10 min interview)

August 4th, 2007: Danny worked a full four days and is still doing press today. As we all know he wasn’t competing but that didn’t slow up the media exposure. Jake Brown’s misfortune turned into a media bonanza for Jake and in large part Danny as well.

LA Times: Danny was mentioned and highlighted in a few articles including in the Sunday Sports section.

Radio: Danny and Jake did a couple of interviews on ESPN 710AM. Big Show with Mason and Ireland on Friday, Legends of Skate Panel for an hour and a half on Saturday.

This new song by Go Big was just recorded in the wake of Jake’s horrendous fall at Thursday night’s X-Games MegaRamp competition. “Tear Down the Walls” can now be heard on our brand new MySpace page. That’s right, we have a MySpace page that you need to check out to listen to the song.

Lat34.com
Aug 04 2007 / Los Angeles, CA

The top big air skaters in the world squared off at STAPLES Center Thursday on the first night of ESPN X Games 13, where Bob Burnquist narrowly edged out Jake Brown in this evening’s Skateboard Big Air Final. On the very last run of the competition, Burnquist’s spectacular frontside 540° launched him 18.07 feet above the quarterpipe – and it was good enough for the gold.

Brown, who going into his own last run was the Big Air leader, landed an astounding 720° jump over the gap, but then fell as he came down off the quarter pipe. Burnquist made his historic run moments later, as the crowd roared its approval. Soon after the judges granted him a 95.66, a hair better than Brown’s 95.33.

“I really had to focus for my last run and reel all my emotions in,” Burnquist said afterwards.

Also competing in tonight’s final were Rob Lorifice, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Buster Halterman, and Bucky Lasek; Gagnon’s best mark of 93.00 won him the bronze.

Skateboard Big Air features athletes skating down a 60- or 80-foot roll-in, choosing to launch over a 50’9”- or 70’2”-foot gap, landing and continuing into a 27’3” high quarterpipe. Speeds on the roll-in ramp can reach close to 40 miles per hour. Last year’s gold medalist Danny Way, who is injured and not competing in X Games 13, developed the sport, in which the highest single score wins.

By Don Norcross
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Associated Press
August 3, 2007

LOS ANGELES – Already leading last night’s X Games 13 Skateboard Big Air event going into his fifth and final jump, Encinitas’ Jake Brown went for broke. The Australian native rolled down the 80-foot ramp, then spun two revolutions across a 70-foot gap.

Soaring up the 27-foot quarterpipe after landing, Brown attempted what’s called a 540 McTwist, a twisting, turning trick with 1½ revolutions.

What followed was one of the most frightening falls in X Games history. The 5-foot-6 Brown lost his board, his momentum carrying him away from the quarterpipe ramp. Flailing and kicking his arms and legs like a tumbling cat, Brown dropped an estimated 45 feet to the flat wooden deck, landing so violently on his legs that one of his shoes flew across the floor.

For two minutes, Brown lay motionless on the deck.

“I seriously thought he was dead, broke his back or broke both legs,” said fellow skater Pierre-Luc Gagnon of Carlsbad. “That was the gnarliest slam I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Eight minutes after the fall, Brown stood up, then wobbled off the floor, waving to the crowd. Brown was taken to an undisclosed hospital for observation. Minutes after the deck was cleared, Vista’s Bob Burnquist took the night’s final run, landed a difficult trick, scored 96.55 points and took first place from Brown. Brown placed second with a 95.33 run. Gagnon took third.

Afterward, skaters were stunned and thankful that Brown walked away from a fall that silenced the Staples Center crowd.

“That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in my life, in the history of skateboarding,” said skater Jason Ellis, who rushed immediately to Brown’s side. “His eyes were open and he wasn’t breathing. I thought he was . . . dead.”

Ellis said that when Brown regained consciousness, he didn’t know what happened.

“As soon as he was up, he goes, ‘Do I have another ride?’ ‘What’d I do?’ ‘Did I try the 720?’ ” said Ellis.

“You made the 720,” Ellis told him.

“What’d I do on the quarter?” Brown asked.

“Nothing, dude,” Gagnon told Brown. “You did nothing on the quarterpipe.”

Had Brown not walked away, Burnquist said he would have passed on his final run, giving Brown the victory.

“There’s a part of me that would have liked to let Jake win,” said Burnquist, who was the heavy favorite because he had last year’s Big Air ramp moved to his 12-acre home. “But it is a competition. He would have wanted me to go out and do my best. Not give up.”

After realizing Brown had survived a frightening crash, Burnquist said he broke down and wept.

“It is bittersweet,” Burnquist said. “He walked away hurt. It’s a roller coaster of energy. Harsh.”

Ellis said he doesn’t want to enter the event next year after witnessing Brown’s accident.

“This contest,” he said, “you can die.”

The most serious injury suffered during a recent action sports event left bicycle motocross (BMX) rider Stephen Murray of Corona paralyzed from the neck down. Competing at the Dew Action Sports Tour on June 22 in Baltimore, Murray attempted a double back flip on dirt, a trick he has pulled off numerous times. He landed the trick in 2001 to win X Games gold.

This time, he landed on his neck.

Last night, Skateboard Big Air was staged inside for the first time. It was held outside in the parking lot at Staples Center the past three years and there were no serious injuries. Ironically, one reason it was moved indoors was to eliminate the wind and make the event safer.

“I like it a lot more (indoors),” said Newport Beach’s Ryan Jetton, 25, before Brown’s fall. “Any time you get the stadium element, it’s huge. I grew up skating, surfing and snowboarding. But what these guys do is leaps and bounds beyond anything I could imagine.

“This is ridiculous. It just blows me away.”

Regarding the skaters’ skills, Philipp Schau of Germany said, “Amazing, insane.”

Last night, skaters and spectators were just thankful one of the stars escaped serious injury.

As Brown was whisked away, down a Staples Center corridor in a wheelchair, he acknowledged his peers by waving his right hand.

“See you back at the hotel,” Gagnon called to him. “I’m buying rounds, shots of Patron.”

NEW YORK TIMES
By MATT HIGGINS
Published: August 3, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 2 — At 62 feet tall and 293 feet long, the Mega Ramp is so massive that its events may be among the few spectacles held in the Staples Center for which the best seats are those farthest from the floor, in the arena’s upper deck. From any closer it is almost impossible to take in the full scope of the setup.

For the first time at the X Games, the Mega Ramp has been shoehorned into an arena for the skateboarding and BMX freestyle Big Air events. It had been set up outdoors since the Big Air discipline was unveiled at the Games three years ago.

Although its dimensions have remained roughly the same over the years, the ramp looms larger under the arena’s roof. Before the Games began Thursday with skateboard Big Air, several athletes said the ramp seemed to cast a bigger shadow, too, eclipsing them and their sports.

A ride on the Mega Ramp begins by taking the arena elevator to the top floor. From there, riders choose to plunge down either a 60- or 80-foot roll-in that resembles a ski-jumping ramp, which launches them over either a 50- or 70-foot gap.

After landing, they ride up a 27-foot tall quarterpipe ramp that sends them soaring as high as 50 feet. Their height is measured by a rotating lighted sign that looks like something borrowed from the Las Vegas strip.

Runs are judged on difficulty and execution of tricks done over both jumps.

The inherent danger associated with riding the ramp was on display during the finals Thursday night when the skateboarder Jake Brown fell more than 45 feet during his fifth and final run.

Brown was in first place at the time, but attempted a series of difficult tricks. After landing a 720 — two full rotations — he prepared for what looked like a 540 on the quarterpipe. As he reached the lip of the ramp, Brown appeared to lose control. His momentum carried him away from the wall of the ramp and over its flat section.

He fell about 45 feet, landing on his feet before falling to his back. Brown lay motionless on the ramp for several minutes while he was tended to by medical personnel.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Pierre-Luc Gagnon, who wound up finishing third in the event. “That was the gnarliest slam I’ve ever seen in my life. I thought he was dead.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, Brown walked off the ramp afterward with assistance and was seen talking.

Bob Burnquist was in second place at the time. After Brown walked off, Burnquist took the final run of the competition. He pulled a switch-stance backside ollie over the 70-foot gap. On the quarterpipe, he landed a switch-stance frontside 540. It turned out to be the winning run.

“It was really hard to go after that,” Burnquist said of Brown’s fall. “I thought he died or was paralyzed.”

Brown wound up finishing second and Gagnon, third.

It was the worst fall any of the skaters could remember since the Mega Ramp debuted at the X Games in 2004.

Burnquist became only the second skater to win a gold medal in skateboard Big Air. Danny Way had won the previous three but missed this year’s Games with a knee injury.

Without Way, Burnquist was the favorite. He built a Mega Ramp in his backyard last summer, the only permanent structure of its kind at the moment.

But not all athletes have embraced the Mega Ramp like Way and Burnquist. Shaun White, the 2006 Olympic gold medal winner in snowboarding and a professional skateboarder on the halfpipe, has no interest in riding the Mega Ramp.

“I just hate anything that can be defined as more spectacle than sport,” he said. “Just like any other athlete, it takes a certain skill to do our sport.”

The BMX freestyle rider Ryan Nyquist, a multiple medal winner at the X Games, was invited to compete in the BMX Big Air event Friday, but declined.

“As big as that ramp is and as fast as you’re going, it just doesn’t impress me all that much right now,” Nyquist said. “I feel like it’s more the ramp that’s on display than it is the riding on it.

Then there is the danger of flying so far and so high. Bucky Lasek said he was dreading riding the ramp because he had little time to practice because of a nagging knee injury that was aggravated by riding it.

Ever since the X Games debuted in 1995, action sports athletes have tried to shed the stigma that they are glorified stuntmen.

To some, the Mega Ramp with its combination of risk and spectacle reinforces unwanted stereotypes.

As Lasek summed it up, “Evel Knievel is going to be stoked.”