September: Kirk Thompson

Roussel: What you been up to all summer?

Kirk: I've gone on a lot of vacations with my friends. I went to Ocean City in June and that was a blast. Anyone who wants to have a great senior trip, go there. I also went to Atlantic city last month. I haven't been up to that much when I've been home, just working, skating, and playing guitar almost everyday, with the occasional party.

Roussel: Does inline skating have any effect on your winter riding?

Kirk: Definatly. Inline skating and skiboarding are a perfect match. Every move I can do on skates I can do on skiboards, and vise versa. All the tricks feel the same; the only difference is how you move between them, skate, or slide down a hill. I switched to skiboarding from skiing when I started to skate, three seasons ago, because I wanted to look at the slopes like how I look at the streets when I skate, and skiboarding lets me do that.

Roussel: How was riding last season?

Kirk: Last season was definately my favorite season. Three seasons ago was my first time, and I loved it. It was so much fun to ride the slopes like you are skating, doing tricks off of everything and just having fun. The next season sucked. It started good, but I broke my shoulder my second time at the slopes, and I was pissed. A week later, I was back on the slopes, but everything I did hurt, and it stayed like that all season. The weather also sucked. The pain and lack of snow made skiboarding seem not that fun... anyway, this last season was great. My first trip out, it felt new, and fun again, and I got a lot of my skating friends, even my brother, to start skiboarding. It was so much fun to skiboard with people who are trying for the first time. I also started to do a lot of "street" skiboarding because I had a real heavy winter, so I got to grind all the handrails that I wish I could do on my skates. Until last season, I saw myself as a rollerblader on skiboarders, but now I definately consider myself more of a skiboarder.

Roussel: What do you hope to accomplish next season?

Kirk: After how much fun last season was, I'm just hoping to have that much fun again. I hope I get out to the slopes a lot more. I also plan on introducing a lot of new people to the sport, because I'm going Penn State, and I don't know what kind of a skiboarding scene there is out there. Also, there's so much I want to try on the slopes, I wish I had a camera folling my everywhere I go. Two of the biggies are mctwists and 900s. I got mctwists on skates, and I can't wait to try on skiboards, and last year, one day I decided to try to 900. I just spun hard off of the lip. I spun the whole rotation, but got partially off axis, so when I landed fakie, my tails dug in and I slammed onto the back of my head. I had a little concussion, but it was worth it. I just wish it was on video.

Roussel: What do you think of the skiboarding industry these days?

Kirk: This one is pretty hard. The industry has definately seen better days, but I think its coming back. As long as we're all out there skiboarding, companies will make stuff for us. Hopefully Venom will give us some great boards. The only thing we really need is vids (props to Ben Wannamaker) and magazines, and people speading the word about how fun our sport is. Right now, not many people know really what skiboarding is. We just need to let the outside know we're hear and ripping the slopes up.

Roussel: Comments, shout outs?

Kirk: Everyone out there, get a few of your friends to try skiboarding. Its the best way to get our sport to grow, because when people find out how much fun it is, they won't want to quit. Also props to everyone out there still skiboarding and everyone who's trying to help our sport. Ros for SBMAG, Courtney for GST, Bailey and all for Tip2Tip, all at Canon, Anubis, Doug workin on Venom, no one at Line, and all of my local skiboarders: Brandon, Litke, Ron, C, Kline, and Murphy and the rest of the crew: EJ, DJ, Chicken 7 and Karl.