X-Games’ Danny Way and Skateboarding’s Mega Ramp

Danny Way may not be as recognizable outside the X-games fan-base as fellow athlete Tony Hawk but his contributions to the skateboarding world have been just as important. Born April 15, 1974, in Portland Oregon, Danny began skating almost as soon as he could walk, crediting his interest in the sport to his step-father. He also participated in baseball and football but eventually his love for skateboarding won out.

On April 29 and 30, 2006 the first mega ramp (also known as “big air,” although the term big air was used in competition settings before the advent of the mega ramp) competition outside the Summer X-Games was held in Mexico City. The mega-ramp consists of a choice of two drop-in ramps, one 65 feet above ground and the other 80 feet. The first descends to a 60-foot horizontal gap while the other leads skaters to a 70-foot gap and on the other side they find a 27-foot quarter pipe and the momentum, if you can stay on your feet after the landing, catapults the average skater 25 feet in the air above the top of this last ramp. 32-year-old Danny Way conjured up this behemoth, which could almost be better described as an interactive amusement park ride, suitable for only the best skateboarders in the world, in 2002, the same year he broke the world record for Longest Distance Jumped; 65 feet. It appeared for the first time in the Summer X-Games in 2004.

The mega-ramp is not the only contribution Way has made to the world of skateboarding through out his life, although it is most definitely the largest. Born in April of 1974, Danny Way was a regular visitor of the Del Mar Skateboarding Ranch by the age of six. He won the first competition he ever entered, at the age of 12, and at age 15, he won his first Vert(ical ramp) competition in Michigan. He has been a professional skater since 1988 and at 17, started his own skateboard company/team, Plan B. In addition to breaking the distance record and creating the mega-ramp, Way was also the first skateboarder to jump out of a helicopter onto a ramp, thus inventing the bomb drop (a general skateboarding term for jumping off of anything).

In 2005, Way set up a mega ramp in China, the drop-in north of the Great Wall, the quarter pipe to the south, and became the first person ever to cross the wall, aerially, without the use of a motorized device. In April, 2006, he broke the world record for highest bomb drop, jumping 82 feet and three inches into a quarter pipe, starting the fall from atop the tuning pegs of the neon Fender Stratocaster which adorns Las Vegas’ Hard Rock CafÃ?©.