Barn Burner 06
July 1, 2006 was the date for the “Barn Burner”, and if you missed it, you blew it. Here’s a quick history: Private indoor bowl. 6-7 ft deep. Kind of a “B” shape. Steel and cement coping. We named it the Thunderdome. A small group of us built it over the course of a few months, finishing it Oct of 05’, on my Brother, Troy’s, property, located in the sticks outside of Columbus, OH. 
This was the first big party we threw, and the event was insane. We arrived around 6pm, thinking we’d be the first ones there and we’d have some time to set up and hang out for a little while. Well, as we rolled up to the bowl, a 40+ person session was already underway. Seems that some people couldn’t wait, and had arrived as early as 4:00. There were folks from Cincinnati, Athens, Toledo, Cleveland, Dayton, Kokomo Indiana, Youngstown, and many points in-between, as well as a very strong Columbus contingency. A midnight headcount was around 100, and total attendance around 150 counting the late arrivals and early departures. All age groups were covered here, from 10 year olds up to old Geezers, girls, women, skater moms, and spectators of all kinds. The sessions were heated to say the least, sometimes with 3 or 4 in the bowl at a time. The sessions peaked probably 5 times throughout the night, with mellow sessions in between. The Cement coping was reduced to a pile of rubble by the end of the night and was in need of some TLC over the next few days following. Beanie, From Kokomo was one of the standout skaters of the night. 5′ + front side tuck knees, stalefishes, mellons, a plethora of lip tricks and fuggin monster airs over the hip (tuck knee, melon, stale, and was trying alleyoop backsides over the hip at face level. James, from Dayton, was killing it too, nailing back tailslides, lipslides on the cement every time, switch back disasters to revert and some sick backside crail slides. Billy Craig from Cincinnati destroyed the lip with fakie-270-feeble-fakie, big ollie grabs (melon, frontside), perfect back smiths, and big airs over the hip. There was plenty of other ripping too. Our Host, Troy Birt, showed his home turf advantage with mach 10 speed lines, lipslides, grinds, and plenty of other tricks in his bag. The ripping went on well into the night until about 2-3am. Everyone loved the bowl and vowed to come back and reap destruction on her again and again! Outside everything imaginable was going on. Behind the barn, Troy’s couple of acres looked like a poster child for a degenerate campground with a shitload of tents scattered across the property. Mortar style fireworks launched with a loud boom overhead, celebrating the 4th of July, or any other reason we could think of to blow things up. The home made cannon of PVC pipe that were used to launch them was a melted mess of plastic by the end of the night. The more exciting mortar fire works were the ones that only made it 10 ft off the ground before exploding into a 50 ft radius of molten ash and shrapnel, setting a couple fires off in the nearby fields which were promptly taken care of. The bonfire raged all night with handfuls of firecrackers, jumping jacks, and bottle rockets finding their way into the blaze. Hijinx, like little tank smoke bombs mysteriously rolling into the bowl, mid run, roman candle wars, and bottle rockets coming from every angle were the norm for the evening. The grill definitely got overworked also, and pretty much had food on it all night long, giving everyone plenty to grub on. Needless to say the drinks were plentiful. Beers, whiskey, wine, sangria, and I even saw someone with a bottle of water at one point. Good times were had by all. 
The night time is the right time
Bill Fleetwood – not rocking to the Mac
Beanie – looking for a place to land this thing
There were plenty of filmers, and photographers taking tons of video footage and photographs. Jason Bash and Ty Wright took up the job of documenting with via camera, getting well over 100 pictures. Look for video on 70-71.com and fivepointsskates.com. All in all it was probably the best skate related event I’ve been to, and a sequel is already in the works. A big thank you goes out to Troy for allowing us to have the event, as well as our sponsors. It was all well received, and deserved by those that got product: Five Points Skateboards 70-71 Effort Skateboards Pocket Pistols Skateboards, Concrete Disciples, Skaterbuilt Skateboards, Old Man Army, AZ/PX, Glass House Skateboards, Old School Skateboards, Mile High
James must feel good popping a blunt on the pool coping
Things finally settled down around sunrise. I got an hour or 2 of sleep, packed up and drove home to a completely wasted Sunday of lying around wishing I wouldn’t have drank those last 6 beers. Like I said, if you missed it, you really missed an epic event. But no worries, because more parties, contests and sessions are right around the corner at the Thunderdome. So stay tuned for lots more to come.