Celebrating Mark Gonzales' Gap Ollie

Super stoked to see this classic Gonz sequence posted today on The Chrome Ball Incident:



Of course this is from the legendary mini ramp contest that was held here in Honolulu at the Blaisdell Arena in 1989, which sadly I did not attend because I had to work that night.
I don't know which is more depressing, the fact that I missed seeing this live or the fact that I was already old enough to have a job in 1989.
I definitely could have weaseled out of yogurt slanging or whatever the fuck it was I was doing that night, but alas I am cursed with unwavering responsibility when it comes to employment obligiations and such.

Fuck me, I am an idiot for missing this because I know a gang of people that were there and had the opportunity to witness this go down firsthand, in fact some of them are visible in this classic video clip:


Young Mililani homies from left to right Ryan Arakaki (glasses, mullet, throwing shaka), Erron Redoble (sunglasses), Big Daddy Chane Wilson (smiling, black Thrasher cap), Grant Kino (partially obscured, throwing shaka), and Ojay Tambio (blue hat).


Radford shredder John Bala's smiling face (black t-shirt) can be seen just above the coping to the right of Gonz's front wheels.


Almost positive that's Jarrett Bush sitting rampside with the white hat.
He definitely had the best vantage point when the ollie went down.


Underneath Gonz's left knee from left to right sit original A'ala Park Bastards Robert Jojo (black hat) and Shane Rodrigues (white hat, hair sticking out).

By the way, Gonz is doing a switchstance frontside grind, really mind-boggling and absolutely unheard of in 1989.

And those are just the ones I could pick out, for sure there are tons more, it's just hard to focus and of course the video quality is primitive compared to what we see nowadays.

Anyway, there are several photos of this memorable stunt, which is quite possibly and I personally would have to say the single most famous and legendary skateboard trick ever documented on Hawaiian soil.
Today I am celebrating this just because:





THIS SHIT HAPPENED 23 YEARS AGO!

Once again huge shout out to Chops at The Chrome Ball Incident for the pictures, mahalo!

Also, it should be noted that Gonz performed the gap ollie twice, once in practice (see the sequence above where a filmer is trailing him, this is the practice make, and also this is in the Vision Street Wear ad, you can plainly see that there is barely anyone in the arena) and once in the actual contest.

I think Caballero ended up winning the contest and Gonz finished like fourth or something, I may be wrong.

Also, this was Danny Way's professional contest debut if you didn't know.

He was fourteen years old.