Crowd flips over stunts

Hearts pounded as hard as the music Friday during Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom HuckJam when extreme sport athletes performed death-defying stunts amid shooting flames at the Spokane Arena.

The more extreme the trick, the louder the nearly sold-out audience cheered.

“They’re all trying to push it,” said Kyle Twohig, 24, of Spokane. “They all want the audience’s attention.”

The finale featured a 30-foot roll-in ramp that launched BMX bikers and skateboarders 42 feet through the air over the half pipe, then off the top of a 20-foot-tall quarter pipe.

Spokane was the first stop on a 30-city tour for the show featuring extreme motocross, BMX and skateboard athletes. It continues today in Portland, and will end July 31 in Albany, N.Y.

“Madonnas,” “stale fish” and “smiths” were common tricks among the boarders while BMX bikers did “corkscrews” and “Supermans.”

“It’s awesome,” said 16-year-old Scott Young, who knows what all those terms mean.

Young is an avid fan of Tony Hawk, a man who has learned to make a living a living with a skateboard. Young and his 12-year-old brother, Nick, were waiting in line for autographs from two athletes featured in the show, but they said the 38-year-old skateboarder is one of their role models.

Watching Hawk skateboard “makes me want to go out and do stuff,” Scott Young said. And it teaches “me to keep at it and don’t give up even when you fall down.”

Ka-el Nobles, 11, of Moscow, Idaho, said skating is better than “watching TV or playing video games.”

Nobles said watching Hawk and BMX bikers on the tour has taught him to be safe. “I wear a protective helmet, knee pads and elbow pads.”

The extreme sport show was proof that even professionals can stumble, and that’s why protecting themselves is important. Several skateboards didn’t make the turn down the pipe on wheels and BMX bikers didn’t always land on cue.

Young was in awe as he watched the motocross men flip their motorcycles 360 degrees and land on the other side of the jump that was the width of a three-lane street.

The teen admits he likes the extreme sports for the thrill, but he also gets the hidden message.

“It inspires you to take chances in other aspects of life that you normally wouldn’t,” he said.