Monday, June 29, 2009

John Drake.



The 1990s Alien Workshop pro got his start on Assault Skateboards out of Dayton, Ohio. The company claimed three pros - Ned Hadden, Scott Ricks and Mike Chu. Ned was the owner, I'd never heard of Scott and Mike went on to ride for New School. Mike ollied the big four at Wallenberg as part of an impromptu contest at the school. Jesse Paez frontside 180'd the stairs and Kris Markovich almost kickflipped them at the same event. This was a good many years before Frank Gerwer finally landed a kickflip and the two Thrasher contests happened.

John had been working at Atmosphere Skateshop in Charlotte, North Carolina after leaving the professional ranks, but has recently stopped working for the shop. Atmosphere's website is on my list of links.

Transworld - May 1991 Volume 9 Number 5

7 comments:

Keith said...

Didn't Ned Hadden end up in multiple Hensley interviews back in the day?

Nice boned indy.

justin said...

He very well could have.

chops said...

Very nice... forgot all about this ad.

John is from the same general area as me and I used to sweat that dude so hard as a grom (til he moved away). Dude was super good and never really got his proper due as a pro.

And yeah Keith, Ned was buddies with Hensley back in the day... which may explain why he was able to turn pro somehow, cause it definitely wasn't because of his skating.

keep up the goodwork.

chops said...

damn, i never knew ned owned assault... i guess his "pro" status makes a little more sense.

Keith said...

I remember reading Hensley interviews and he would mention Ned, Mario Rubalcaba and Marc Hostetter and I would think "If Hensley's down with these guys, they must be good" LOL Wrong on all 3 accounts. Ned had footage in iirc a Tracker video and he was terrible.

Assault Skateboards said...

Was never in a Tracker video. Do either of you homo's still skate or just go on blogs and talk shit? I'm 40 and still skate! What the fuck have you done?

Damian said...

Scott was in the Tracker The Brotherhood video. He had those extremely innovative curb nose stomp tail grab variation tricks. His part is like 30 seconds.

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