Robert Brink - Writer

Bucky Lasek Unedited

May 4, 2006 | Skip To The Comments (2)

Bucky Lasek
By Rob Brink
April 2003

The short version ran in ESPN, the longer version ran on EXPN.com. Here's the unedited version...

Recently I saw some pictures of your knee and it was basically destroyed.
That big old gash? I wear two of those carbon fiber CTI knee braces. I was skating this sticky ramp and knee sliding out of a trick pulled on my kneepad, which is wrapped around my knee brace and the hinge of the knee brace jammed into the side of my knee and punctured my knee. It sucked.

When did the injury happen?
In February in New Zealand.

How long were you out of commission?
Two months.

Damn, what did you do to pass the time?
Worked on the house, did some landscaping and stuff around the house that I had been putting off because I was too busy skating.

Who do you think will be the toughest region to beat in the Globals this year for vert?
I would say Bob Burnquist and Sandro Dias. Because Bob's got the tech and is just incredible. Sandro is on fire and he's so great to watch. Basically they are gonna win it.

You're saying that already?
Yeah.

You are into cars and racing—have you ever competed?
No. I've been to a couple driving schools, but mainly it's just for fun.

What car are you driving now?
98 4-door M3 and a Volvo T5 Wagon and a 2003 M3.

Which do you like better?
The 2003 M3.

Do you ever get into any racing on the street?
We go out to the Palomar mountain every once in a while. I go out there with my buddy Jared. He's one of my friends who doesn't skate—he's into cars and stuff.

What's your dream car?
A white Ferrari. I have always liked Ferraris. The newest one, the Enzo is insane.

Is that the one Bam has?
No he has the Modena.

Do you see any similarities between skating and racing?
It's just kind of a learning experience. And once you learn anything to a certain level, you can kind of relate it to something else you want to learn. Like in skating, there's this point where once you get so good…you can get better. With driving, once you learn certain techniques, you can just get better.

Your life seems to have evolved to more of a Rock Star life than a skateboarder's life with touring, television, magazines, etc. Is it hard juggling a family and all this?
The lifestyle is the easy part. The hard part is having a stressful day at home and then being like “Okay well I have to leave at 2:30 to skate for three hours.”

When I am at home I am so busy running around refereeing and playing maid—I don't have time to think about skating all the time, and when I go to the ramp, sometimes I want to just sit there and watch—unwind. It's hard to turn it on and off.

It's like an intense mood swing.
Yeah, sometimes I have to go shoot an ad after I just got done refereeing a 12 rounder.
Plenty of skaters wouldn't enter the X Games or be in ESPN magazine. Why the choice not to be “anti-mainstream?”
I have always competed, so when ESPN started throwing all these contests on TV and stuff, it was new and it was pretty sick. There's two ways of looking at it. “These guys are ‘selling out' to the corporate and buying in…” Or “These guys are having fun, they are doing what they want to do, and they are getting paid to do it.”

The first contest I ever won I got $500. I wasn't doing it for the money. But nowadays a contest is so big and televised and you win so much money. I have a wife and kids, so why not enter contests? I don't enter all of them and I still find some fun in it.

Some of the prize money is bigger than a lot of people's salaries...
It's insane. What ESPN and everyone else is doing is helping me live, do what I want, and make a future out of it. It's not like I am sitting at home hating on everyone who enters these contests and the only thing I have to show for it is the fact that “I'm cool because I don't enter these contests.”

Do you ever feel that skaters play it too safe in contests? Same old runs and such?
I don't want to name names, but we definitely raise hell at them. Skateboarding definitely isn't a quiet sport. We mock and mess with each other constantly. So if someone is doing the same old stuff, its known and they know it.

Describe a scene where you and your friends are baggin' on another skater.
Most of the time it's about guys who used to do tricks that can't do them anymore, like 540s. Some of the guys spin 540s but they don't do them all the time, and you know they can do it.

Are you ever on the receiving end?
Usually I come out with new stuff and keep it pretty fresh. I always try to do something new for a contest.

Would you rather see consistency or someone taking risks just trying the hardest stuff and maybe not landing it?
I'd rather see both. I'd rather see someone make a consistent run—that's what I try to do, and I try to push it. It's kind of hard in my situation. If I don't place in the top five, people are going to be like “He's falling off.” They expect to see you do good, but then when you do good they just write it off.

Who's the most jock-like skateboarder?
Danny Way, and that's no dis. He's a machine, he's always working out. If he's hurt he is working to get better and if he is better he's working to get hurt.

Who should have played another sport for a living?
I could pick anyone in the sport that could be good at anything they want to be. It's just opportunity. Skateboarding came up and that's what they got good at. But if they were to play baseball or something like that—if they were to be into it the way that they are into skating, people would be like “Mark McGuire who? Michael Jordan who?”

They call Tony Hawk the “Michael Jordan of skateboarding,” but I think Tony would probably be more of a computer guy than an athlete.

Who are some skaters who could play other sports professionally?
There's definitely some skaters out there that have no athletic ability whatsoever, as far as sports like baseball and basketball and stuff like that. Let's see, whose got game? God, I really can't think of anyone.

What would you have been good at if skating hadn't gotten in the way?
I think I'd probably be racing cars. I used to play baseball and football back in Jr. high school. I do other things now, I play golf and basketball. I try to do everything.

Does golf stress you more than relaxing you?
If I am really trying to keep score, I get stressed out. I'm not really that good. I just started. And as soon as I start drinking—it's over. I can't even keep score anymore because I just shank everything. It also depends who you are playing against.

Do you ever ponder how much longer you have in professional skating?
I do. A lot of people go “What are you going to do after you're done skating?” But when I started skating people were like “What are you going to do, skate all your life?” So when the time comes to be done skating, I'll worry about it.

What do you want the kids to do? Grow up as pro skaters?
I think girls who snowboard are pretty sick. As far as skating goes, I would love to see them skate. I know there's stuff out there that if I just put in their heads constantly—like if I took them to the skatepark constantly with me and went that route, I am sure that they would become skaters. But I don't know. I take them sometimes and they don't really get into it. They are at an age right now where they scare easy. And then they don't want to do it again, so I don't know what to do about that.

Kids across the country now skate to fit in ... how do you feel about that?
It trips me out sometimes. I see kids that look more like skaters than I do. They talk so much crap, and then I'm like “Wow this kid must rip!” But then they can't even roll on a skateboard. With the clothing thing, we used to get made fun of so much for wearing baggy clothes and now so many people rock the baggiest clothes now.

Did you ever skate to be one of the “cool kids?”
Once I stepped on a skateboard I just didn't want to step off. Just skating down the sidewalk, I remember the sound of the wheels going over the cracks in the sidewalk and how it felt to just carve and learn how to ollie up a curb. I remember I had a little lapper on my back truck so I could just slam into a curb and go up it. That was just sick. And how much it has changed since then? It's unreal.

Where is skating is going? By the time your kids are say, 15, what will skating be like?
It's still going to progress but its progressing at a level now that I don't know how long it can stay at that level. Like the guys now, as far as street skating goes, the guys that are banging out all these gnarly tricks, it seems like things are getting so gnarly and if you mess up one time it sets you back so much that some guys don't return to that level. They come in, they are insane and sick, and then they get hurt and fall off. They are still good, but not progressing at the level they were. I don't know how long it's gonna hold up like it is, but no matter what its still going to progress. It's great, I have so much fun.

You always wonder “How much bigger can it go?” Like, how many more stairs can someone ollie?
Whatever the change and whatever direction skating goes, it is going to happen soon—with all these companies losing out and dropping like flies. It is going to rebuild and restructure so I am kind of interested to see how it turns out.
You're getting to be a veteran...what's do you think about all the young guys coming up?
I love them man. It's a whole other level that I have never seen. Like watching Mark Appleyard skate is just poetry in motion right there. Watching Rune and Lincoln skate vert is sick. It makes you want to get better.

How do you feel being a guy who helped pioneer the sport, to help it achieve its status as an accepted and “cool” sport?
It's always great to be appreciated. I always take that, keep it in the back of my head and keep going. It makes you feel good inside that you have done something positive and that people appreciate it.

If you were 15 again, how would you approach skateboarding?
The same way I am now, just skating everything and if something comes into my head—as long as I think about if a little bit, I'll try it. The same way I always have since I was little.