King Of The Road 2003: Tum Yeto.

Adrian Mallory and Ethan Fowler.

Second Place.

Tum Yeto went with a mixed team that picked riders from their different board companies. Foundation pros Ethan Fowler and Gareth Stehr were on board, as was Toy Machine's Diego Bucchieri. Adrian Mallory was an am on Pig Wood at the time and Johnny Layton was a 17 year old getting flowed boards from Toy Machine. He was officially added to Ed's Monster Squad after the trip. Josh Beagle was the team manager, KOTR creator Michael Burnett put himself in the van as the photographer, and Jeff Morris ran the video camera. Scott Bourne was their mystery guest. He was the overall KOTR guest MVP with eight tricks plus the Daewon Song Award for most rigged up set-up for rolling off some plywood on sawhorses into the deep end of a pool. The Tum Yeto van started in Miami and cruised westward through Jacksonville, Atlanta, Louisville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Lawrence, Denver, Reno, Tahoe, and Walnut Creek before dropping the video tape off in San Francisco.

Since this whole trip was Mike's idea, his story of their journey across the country is a joyful tale chock full of highs and lows, skateboard trivia, concern over whether some of the challenges were in bad taste (focus a stranger's board for example), and a smidge of drunken antics.

"This is an appropriate time to insert an Animal Chin message where we learn that the fun we had is our true reward. That's true and all. We did have fun. But on that last night, exhausted from two weeks of skate action, what we really wanted was to win."

The photos are by Michael Burnett.

Thrasher - January 2004 Volume 24 Number 1