The early 1990's were the "hey-day" of Competition Skates' Rampage skatepark. Competition Skates was owned and run by John Skelton
(with help from his beloved sidekick Oreo). Skelton was an inline racer and sold both skateboards and rollerskates(later, inlines) from his
shop which was located in Roebuck in the same building as the roller skating rink (good for sales eh?). Skelton opened a second shop across town
in Hoover and had John Waight running that shop for him. John Waight is an excellent ramp builder (built all of the Brickyards) and along with
other skater, convinced Skelton to build a skatepark at the Roebuck location (since there was a spot of open land right next to the skating rink).
Construction began around fall 1988 and by October the mini-ramp was complete. Shortly after, the vert ramp was built. At that point, we had
a true skatepark! Rampage was unique for many reasons. First, it had a huge mini-ramp (which were the "in" thing at the time) with a spine
(which no other parks for miles/states around even had!!!). Second, it had a huge vert ramp at a time when big ramps were hard to find. Finally and most
importantly, it was layered in STEEL ! NO other parks in the South could claim that at the time! Some incredible memories there...good times and great skating.
Team Ping, Team Herb and LTSP were the local crews. We spent pretty much all of our free time there. Those were the salad days...
(*exact dates on these are hard to tell at times....if it helps, gray painted ramps @ opening-1991, orange mini/pink vert was @ 1991-close) |
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Hosey in his younger days @summer 1990
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Rob Smith frontside grinding the mini-ramp @ 1990
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Hunter Oden with a sizable air-to-fakie on Comp's steel vert
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Rob Smith big Japan air
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Hosey owned this spine! 180 tailgrab varial over the spine!
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Tommy frontside layback grind on the mini
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Hosey with a foot flappin' invert on vert
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Weems grinding a frontside 5-0 across the vert ramp
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Hosey rocks a hurricane on vert
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Tommy big air-to-falie with a cast on!
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Tommy floats a high boned out air
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Hosey's fside tailgrab nose grind
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Tommy Little in mid-flight on a BIG fside air
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Tommy styles an air with wrist cast
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Tommy Little airs at dusk
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Trying stupid nosebonks playing around earned Solomon a nice broken ankle
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Liptrickster Griffin serves up a bside Watcha-ma-call-it
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Griffin clicks a Watcha-ma-call-it over the spine
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Little and Coggins....vert doubles
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Tommy airs over Kenny's invert
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Griffin stands-up a backside 5-0 across the mini-ramp
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Tommy fastplant to fakie @ 1990
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Byron Weems with a handrail high bside air
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Tommy backside Indy air
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Tommy tweaks a backside air to the limits
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Hosey lays down his patented frontside Smithgrind
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Little Jon ruling over his kingdom...the Comp mini-ramp
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Little Jon no-handed backside nose grind
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Hunter Oden big air-to-tail over the spine....if only you could hear how this sounds!
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Tommy lofts a huge Method air over the spine
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Hosey backside disaster on vert
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Hosey 180 frontside ollie shifty over the spine
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Chris Upton ollies to fakie on the mini
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Chris Upton frontside ollie tail grab
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Solomon nose stall reverts on vert
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Kenny Wright one-footed tail gab over the spine
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Solomon pivot-to-fakie ON VERT!
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Coggins easy goin' lien-to-tail
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Kenny Wright palms a fakie ollie
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Weems goes frontside to backside stand-up over the spine at speed...HELLYEH!
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Solomon with a rare melon-to-fakie on Comp's wonderful mini-ramp
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Tommy makes the paper @ 1991
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Kenny shows his true color! (haha)
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Kenny gets inverted
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Stefan Wiggins with his trademark fside tomato grabs on the mini-ramp
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Griffin frontside half-cab ollie grab over the spine
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Joey Jones fakie ollie shifty over the spine
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Griffin clicks a frontside Watch-ma-callit
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Ryan Ratliff ollie-to-tail on the mini @ 1991
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MC Coggins ollies over the Volcano to tail @ 1991
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Every park has one and we did too...the "hang out" guy....Chris Souza seen here in better days
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Steffan Wiggins grinding
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Steffan rocks it like a hurricane
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Kenny and his dog Stitch
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Tommy floats a big ollie across the spine
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Griffin shows up to put in work on the mini-ramp
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Joey Jones living at the park each day
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Joey Jones sticks smooth, clean pivot-to-fakie
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Ryan Ratliff frontside chink-chink
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John Waight floats a frontside air @ 1991
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Yes, chicks did skate the vert ramp!
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Solomon tail grab nose-stall revert on vert
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Kenny proudly shows off his hipper
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Kenny boosts a big footplant
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Rob airs to fakie
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Kenny boosts backside
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Solomon fakie-to-no-handed nose blunt
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Hosey frontside one-footed air
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Kenny Wright air-to-fakie
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Chris Upton floats a one-footed frontside ollie
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Hosey inverts in the final days of the park
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Rob Smith and Steffan with a vein attempt to block the dismantle of the mini-ramp on it's last day
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Solomon and Smith on Rampage's last day
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Bob from Atlanta gets last runs on the Rampage ramp he was taking home
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Bob dismantles the mini-ramp to take to Atlanta
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Rampage R.I.P.
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