
DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110044

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   99 lines

TO THE XTREME! EVENT DRAWS A FEW GOOD COMPETITORS - & THE MARINES

The Marines showed up Saturday when armies of kids with studded tongues, pierced noses and way-baggy jeans descended upon Mount Trashmore.

Heck, the Marines paid to show up.

Are you kidding? This was the X Games Xperience Tour, a cavalcade of rollerblading, skateboarding, rock climbing, bungee bouncing, metal concerts and Dew sucking that crawls with the demographic the Marines crave: 18- to 22-year-olds, with attitude.

You better believe the Marines fell in to help sponsor the 10-city alternative jam that stops four more times before the Third annual X Games - i.e. the ESPN Extreme Games featuring such events as street luge and skysurfing- go off in San Diego June 21-28.

Never mind the face jewelry, the steady diet of Slim Jims or that the entire generation is doomed to crummy spelling, dropping the ``e'' from every word that begins ``ex.''

They are still our nation's future, and the Marines want to get their hooks in. A few good ones are all they need, anyway.

``We look at this as, hopefully, just a phase they're going through in life,'' said Staff Sgt. Arthur Downs, who recruits in Western Tidewater for the Marines, smiling as skateboarders straggled past.

``You'd be surprised what a lot of Marines looked like before they joined the Marines,'' said Capt. Todd Amann, a district supervisor in from New Cumberland, Pa., for the free event that runs today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

``The kids who come to this are athletes, and that's what we're looking for, athletes with a competitive attitude who want to push things to the extreme. That's why we're here.''

In fact, the Marines' booth along the sponsors' midway was among the busiest, with youngsters signing up to do pullups for prizes: one pullup earned a poster and a sticker; five, a dogtag; 10, a lanyard; and 20 were good for a water bottle - not to mention a friendly phone call at a later date.

Across the walkway at the Mountain Dew silver Airstream, Michael Massengill filled ice buckets with canned sodas as fast as his arms could move. Massengill, who works in promotions for PepsiCo in Atlanta, said he was prepared to give away 130 cases of the stuff Saturday and 130 more cases today.

``This,'' said Massengill, sweating beneath one of the green 'do rags that went to winners of the slam-a-Dew contests, ``is slammin'.''

Naturally.

Near one end of the Mount's base, a street course - a couple of curved ramps, a jump box and a railed bridge - was up for anybody with a skateboard, in-line skates, a helmet and a signed insurance waiver to patrol for 10 minutes a pop.

Other thrill-seekers waited to careen above a trampoline in a bungee harness, or to strap in and scale a 20-foot rock wall.

The main attraction, though, was the half-pipe. It's a 10-foot-high, U-shaped ramp made of masonite, a wood-like composition, on which skating, skateboarding and BMX biking professionals gave three 20-minute exhibitions.

One of them was Virginia Beach's Serge Ventura, a 26-year-old skateboarder who specializes in ``high air.'' That is, Ventura rises up and off one end of the half-pipe, spins in midair, lands on his board, skates to the other side and does it again.

Sometimes he misses and skids down the ramp on his well-padded knees. ``It's a two-story free-fall if you don't connect,'' the public-address announcer cautioned.

However, most times Ventura pulls off stunts that make you go ``ooh'' and ``whoa'' on reflex.

Ventura, an 8-year pro who makes, according to an X Games consultant, close to six figures off equipment endorsements and contest winnings, set a world record for high air in December in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Performing on the standard 11-foot-high half-pipe, Ventura sailed 11 feet, 8 inches above the ramp.

``This is one of the biggest turnouts I've seen,'' said Ventura, who has appeared at other Xperience Tour stops and will compete in the X Games. ``I'm stoked that it's in my hometown.''

Tour manager Travis Tadysak expected the Virginia Beach stop would draw at least the tour average of 16,000 to 18,000 people for the two days, though he said higher attendance wouldn't surprise him.

The word is out that Virginia Beach is a skateboard, in-line hotbed, Tadysak said. That is the main reason ESPN chose it as one of the tour's minor-market stops. In addition to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta and Los Angeles, the tour has dates in Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colo., and New Orleans.

``Everybody thinks I'm from California, where all the pros are from,'' Ventura said. ``I'm privileged to be from a small town like Virginia Beach, representing the East Coast, and competing against all the top guys.''

Amid the teeming skateboard nation, though, Ventura is a true rarity.

As for those souls who nevertheless hunger for the ultimate Xperience, well, a certain Staff Sgt. Downs has two words for you:

Marines, anyone? ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by L. TODD SPENCER

Serge Ventura of Virginia Beach gets some ``high air,''

skateboarding off a half-pipe structure and spinning on his board

before landing, at the X Games tour Saturday at Mount Trashmore.

Photo by L. TODD SPENCER

Tony Horton, 8, from Virginia Beach, tries out the bungee jump at

the X Games Xperience Tour Saturday. Tony is a little young for

Marine recruiters who attended the event to make initial contact

with potential Marines.