Robert Brink - Writer

Swatch Impact Tour!

February 16, 2007 | Skip To The Comments (1)

Does this make me cool or old? Or both? My ticket to the Swatch Impact Tour, three days after my birthday during my eighth grade year. Mark "Gator" Rogowski, Jeff Phillips, Joe Johnson, a rollerskater who rode the vert ramp and a bunch of BMX dudes were on the tour. I remember seeing Per Welinder doing a little freestyle demo out in the parking lot before the show. After the event, we lurked to the back of the arena, waited by the bay doors where the skaters were gonna come out...and soon enough they did. they got into a school bus, I suppose to get taken back to the hotel. Anyway, my friend Scott McEwan, who was kinda the Bam Margera of our class...the "Jackass," so-to-speak, starts chasing the bus as it rides away, alongside Gator's seat. And Scott is hauling ass, yelling Gator's name, so Gator slides the window open and slips a board out, still in the cellophane and a plastic bag, and drops it right into Scott's hands. We seriously almost shit ourselves from how rad it was. And that was my first, and only, Gator encounter.