Waiting for Lightning (2012) Movie Script
I said,
"Are you crazy?
What do you think
you're doing?"
I didn't see it
as being a positive.
I saw it as Danny
gettin' killed.
Anyone can learn
anything they want.
It's all in your head.
You've just got
to spend time on it.
I don't know that a
lot of people really get Danny Way.
There's
a lot of guys that...
that'll do whatever it
takes to win.
Then there's guys that do whatever
it takes to push themselves,
guys that do whatever it takes
to progress their sport.
Danny's doing what he was meant
to do, and you can see that.
And very few people get to
experience that in their life.
When we first got
to the Great Wall,
We were just like,
"Oh, my god.
This guy
is gonna kill himself".
They would never let anyone
build something like that here.
There was a mountain biker
that jumped the wall
and careened
to the bottom, dead.
His ramp wasn't
built properly.
It was
gut-wrenching for me.
The outcome
of the end of it
was what I was
always afraid to face.
I'd heard
about China for years.
Danny was on a flight
and actually saw
the Great Wall from the plane.
And I remember
him joking like,
"Yeah, I'm gonna jump
over that thing".
I don't remember hearing
how it all came together.
I just kind of remember
hearing it was going to happen.
The role of a manager
is to make your visions
and your dreams real.
Danny wanted to jump
the Great Wall of China,
and Ray and I felt
that we could help do that.
This is
what the next chapter
of Danny's life
was all about,
and we were the guys
selected to make that happen.
So we go
to China fueled by a dream
and ambition
and nothing much else.
We pull up
to Juyoungguan Gate...
and it's impressive.
The wall,
in some spots is...
I guess it's just not as big
as I envisioned in some spots.
I wouldn't want
to cheat on this one,
so I'm trying to find
some section on...
We're trying to find
a section here
that would actually be
a legitimate jump for me.
There's definitely spots
on the wall that are enormous,
but there are some
that aren't, and I just...
you know,
I wouldn't feel right
unless I found a spot
that was really magnif...
magnisi... nificent.
Sorry, it's freezing out.
I can barely talk.
So, I think right here...
jumping from there
over to here
is the widest spot
of the wall,
which I feel does the most
justice for skateboarding
and the possibility of breaking
the world record.
We come
back from China,
and Danny's on the phone
with me at midnight
going, "Dude,
is this real?"
And I'm like,
"I don't know.
"But here's your job:
"Prepare,
have your bag packed,
and you're jumping until I'm
telling you you're not jumping".
I think
the story really started
before my brother
and I were even born.
It started out with my mom
and my father getting together,
and then taking off
and going up the coast
in their VW van
and following the hippie trail.
Everything
that Dennis
ever told me
about life happened.
Within 45 minutes
of me first meeting him,
he told me that I was
gonna have two sons with him,
and that he was put
on this earth
to teach me
how to be a survivor.
From that moment on,
we were connected.
Dennis and I
were on an adventure.
We went up to Oregon,
and all the pieces
of the puzzle
started being
put together.
Damon was so mellow,
and Danny wore me down.
That first year,
I thought I was gonna lose
my mind with him.
Little did I know
years down the road
I would go through
a lot more
than what I went through
the first year of life with him.
We got tired
of the rain in Oregon,
so we ended up moving
back to Carlsbad.
Dennis's ex-wife worked
for the gas
and electric company.
When we went to get
our electricity hooked up,
that's when she found out
Dennis was back in town,
and she had him
put in jail
for 90 days
for a $50 child-support payment.
And nine days
after he was in there,
he got hung
in jail.
That day was
the worst day of my life.
And that's where the kids
and I began our journey
as the three musketeers,
I call it.
I don't really remember
my father dying.
I don't really remember
the period of time
before him
and our stepdad, Tim,
but I clearly remember
us living with Tim
after my mom and him
got married.
Tim was like
a kid himself,
so when he met Damon
and Danny, it was on.
Tim came into
my brother and mine's life
and took on
that father-figure role.
He surfed every day,
and lived that
surfer/bohemian lifestyle.
We started tuning in
to that piece of culture
that was really free.
He gave my kids
exactly what they needed
at that point
in their lives.
He was really good
with his hands and wood,
and he would build
us skateboards.
He wouldn't go buy us a skateboard,
he'd actually build it,
and the thing would have
its shape and everything.
It was amazing.
We really little, and we'd ride
them around out front.
Danny was a three-year-old,
and he mastered how to make
that skateboard work for him.
He figured out that
if he put a knee on the board
and pushed
with his other foot,
he could keep up with Damon
trying to get
away from him on his bike.
Danny rode
it fearlessly.
Tim gave them an opportunity
to experience that,
wasn't overprotective,
wasn't afraid
of them getting hurt.
Everywhere we went,
we had to take the skateboard.
So, the skateboard was...
the beginning
of Danny Way.
There has
to be some sort of visual
that captivates you
in such a way
that you just
fall in love with it
so that nothing will get
in the way of you
wanting to get on your board
and create,
play, and have fun
and outdo your own limitations,
and I think that moment
that captivated Danny Way
was that Del Mar moment.
I remember
my brother and I, like,
seeing it from the freeway
and seeing guys
flying out of pools and stuff,
and we were freaking out.
My dad turned around
and took us straight there
and got us memberships.
I was too young,
so we had to lie about my age.
When the park started
in 1978,
it was the full-on boom
of skateboarding.
We had, like, six people
working at a time.
You know,
I think of those days...
I'd wake up
at 8:00 in the morning
and go to Denny's,
get breakfast,
come to the park, be the
first one in there skating.
It was sheer passion.
Soon as I hit
that park, padded up,
paid my money,
and, like, skated in there,
I just knew I wanted
to be part of that scene.
I still remember
my initial experience
at the park.
To hear the sound
of the wheels
and the bearings
on the concrete,
just, like,
that was it.
There was no turning back,
completely hooked.
All the best skateboarders
skated at Del Mar.
If you want to get better
and make a name
for yourself, it's there.
Del Mar definitely
defined my personality.
It gave me
a sense of identity.
It gave me a community,
a group that I really
enjoyed hanging out with,
and it set me apart
from the normal high school kid.
The first time I went to Del Mar
skate park, it was a done deal.
Like, I was addicted so fast
that it's the only thing
I could think about
from that point on.
Our stepfather, Tim, he
would take us to the skate park
when Danny was, you know, six years
old, and I was eight years old.
He'd go down and pay for them
to hang out there all day.
It was almost, for me,
like a baby-sitting program.
Some people spent
every waking hour at that park.
They came when it opened
at 9:00 in the morning
till 11:00 at night.
When I
first saw Danny,
he was just
a little kid from Vista
trying to come into this scene
that was Del Mar,
and, like, we were always
kind of tough on him.
Unfortunately
he was the little kid,
and we were
the big 14-year-olds,
so, you know,
picking on him,
hiding his board...
I was always smaller
than most my friends,
so I was in a position
where I had to earn respect,
and I always was trying
to prove myself.
We could tell Danny to do anything,
and he would do it.
We'd hang out with
our neighborhood friends then,
and we'd be like, "Hey, Danny,
go kiss that girl,"
and he would do it,
just whatever it took,
to get the attention
and respect of the group.
When I hit 28,
I started partying a lot.
I realized that
with alcohol and drugs
I could mask
the pain of Dennis dying.
I would leave and not come home
for a few days.
Mary had a hard time
letting go
of what happened
to, uh, Danny's father.
I think that haunted her,
and it affected the kids.
Our mom was gone a lot,
and so for Danny and I,
skateboarding really
became our family.
We were with each other
every single day skating.
It was just
what we did.
There was no alternative.
There was no option.
After a while,
I thought the grass was greener
on the other side,
and I caused my marriage
to go upside down.
And that's when Tim
and I parted the sheets.
I got a lot of backlash,
not so much from Damon,
but from Danny.
Danny's had
a level of anger inside him
for as long
as I can remember.
He had a particular thing
with my mom,
and I think a lot of that
was just Danny's anger
and rage around
losing our dad,
then losing
our stepdad.
My mom had
so many different boyfriends,
from drug dealers
to just abusive guys
who used to beat
the shit out of her
and my brother and I,
and, um, you know...
Yeah, it's just...
The police came
to our house a lot...
a lot in Vista.
So, my kids grew up
never knowing what they
were gonna come home to.
Whenever things
got really difficult at home,
Danny would always ask
to go live with Tim.
He was always so happy
around Tim.
He had a mentor,
he had somebody
that could support him
and act as a father figure
in his life.
You have scars from scraping
himself on the sidewalk.
You also have scars
in your mind
that you never
can get rid of.
Sometimes it's good
to talk about them,
but sometimes
it's just too painful.
So, what do we do?
We go out and find
something that's fun.
Sometimes it's dangerous,
but oh, well.
It's worth it.
We've always been out
to prove ourselves
because of having
to make up
for what we didn't have
in the family structure.
What comes along with that
is a strong, competitive spirit.
When I was watching Danny,
he had a focus.
He made up his mind
to do this one trick,
and he would keep trying it
until he did.
I mean, he'd get
beat up, man...
bam! sometimes...
but he'd just
get back up.
Will he survive?
Gale Webb was an interesting
person in Danny's life.
She took Danny
under her wing,
got him hooked up in the
demo circuit she was doing,
and provided some kind
of structure for Danny.
At the beginning,
he was kind of shy,
and then I generate
the excitement.
I go, "Oh, you like that?
Come on, we wanna hear you!"
He'd look at the crowd,
and he would just be different
with the crowd because they
were rooting for him,
and all of a sudden he'd start
pulling off some of these tricks.
When I first heard
Danny's name,
I know we were doing
a demo for a shop in Vista,
and the shop was a-buzz
about Danny.
Witt hired a limousine to take
Tony and some other people over,
and then I jumped
in the limo with them,
so that was the first time
I shot photos of Danny.
I think it was
a little intimidating,
because we all came,
like, the hoard of us came
and descended
on the ramp,
but at the same time he really
wanted to show what he had.
I saw Tony look.
He look at me
and he goes...
Let's hear it for Danny!
Whoo! Danny Way!
Two months
before the event,
we got permission to jump
at the Great Wall.
We have a location,
but we still need
money to build
the biggest skateboard ramp
that's ever been built.
DC, who was Danny's
main sponsor,
they were hearing us
going, "This looks real,"
but they weren't responding,
and it was radio silence.
When Danny
had the idea it was amazing,
but he was asking us
to put up a lot of money
to build a ramp that we don't know
what the end result's gonna be.
We had such
a short amount of time.
I knew right then and there
this was gonna be
a very massive project.
It was gonna take the toll
on all of us
in certain ways that we
just could never imagine.
I remember
spending the night
at Damon's and Danny's
all the time
because it was a little
more liberal than my house.
So, I got to just
kind of hang out,
I could just smoke cigarettes,
and skate the miniramp.
As a skateboarder and as a
young kid, it was badass.
I had this group
of friends in Vista,
this really talented group
of skateboarders,
and Danny really wanted
to be part of that group.
That was my crew.
It was my people.
We'd go see movies,
try to scam on chicks,
and skate all
the areas all around.
Hi, what's
your name?
- Courtney.
- Amy.
- Come over here.
- See if you can get a date and I'll film it.
Those were my friends
I skated with every day,
and Danny would tag along
and skate with us.
My brother always said
they were his friends.
They always defined me
as the young guy
who was too young
to be a part of their crew.
I was like, "We all skate.
What do you mean?"
I just remember
just boards flying,
you know, and elbows,
slight little punches
and jabs in the stomach
and boards in the shin.
Danny skated harder
than anybody else,
so he wasn't going anywhere, and
that caused friction, you know?
Damon really was
a big influence on Danny.
He just wanted to emulate
his older brother,
and he pretty much
would do anything...
or try to do anything
his older brother did.
We were skateboarding
Vista high. It was me and Damon.
This jackass rolls up
and just cold-cocked Damon.
And Damon fell down,
hit his head on the curb.
There was, like,
a little bit of a scuffle.
Then it kind of just died down.
It wasn't that big a deal.
We skated
for a little bit longer,
and then I took him home.
On the way home,
his head's, like...
"I got a headache," as you would
when you get punched in the face,
so it didn't alarm me.
I had gone to work.
Danny called me
and said,
"Mom, Damon's eyeballs
are in the back of his head".
And I hurried home,
and Damon was
in full-blown
epileptic seizures.
When we arrived
at Tri-City hospital,
the doctor said,
"Give or take 15 minutes,
we're gonna lose him".
His whole left side
had been paralyzed.
When Damon was
going through that injury,
I just remember Danny just being
really focused on skateboarding.
He was just ripping
harder than ever.
It's almost like he put
all his pain
or whatever he was going through
100% into skateboarding.
Danny was on a mission
to turn pro
for the both of them.
When I first
got introduced to Danny,
it was through
a friend of mine.
He goes, "There's this
little ripper kid
"named Danny Way,
and he should be on Hosoi.
"He's got guts
and he's just crazy.
He just goes for it". And I was
like, "Really? All right".
And then I meet him,
and he's this little blond kid
with braces
and, like, freckles,
and a little guy, and I'm like,
"This kid's crazy?"
You know what I mean? Looking at
him, you would never think...
You know, he looked like
Dennis the menace.
Next thing you know, we're
going to this demo in Arizona,
and we go to this hotel,
and he just... boom!
Front-flips off the bed
onto the ground.
I was like,
"This kid's crazy.
What can he do
on a skateboard?"
I was skating some miniramp
by myself or something.
My brother comes up,
and he's like, "Yo!
Danny Way is here!"
I had my idea
of what skateboarding could be
and how far a kid like myself
could take it at that age.
That whole perception
just got shattered on the spot.
When I think of a trick
and I'm sitting at my house,
I come down here
and learn it.
He would
just think about tricks,
and then he would
go out and do them.
Between 11 to 13 was
like a game changer.
I remember seeing Danny doing stuff
that doesn't even have names.
Just a clickety-clack blunt this
to board to shuffle to revert.
I don't think there's
ever been a 13-year-old kid
that would go after
the tricks
and just skating in general
the way Danny did.
I remember realizing
there's something about
the way he's skating
that I'm not gonna be able
to keep up with,
and here I am
in my first couple of years
of being a professional skater,
and I'm thinking,
"I'm done".
Yeah, Danny!
# Had no future #
# Remember youth #
# No pop culture #
There have been
a few people in skateboarding
that have truly been able
to not just spot talent
but allow that talent
to be the best it can be.
Mike saw talent,
but then he also was able
to bring it out of people.
Mike would take kids
under his wings
and help them along.
He could get you to do things
that you didn't want to do.
I mean, he would push you
to get you to go
to another level
that you're not
comfortable with.
But yet he could see it and say,
"Oh, yeah, you can do that".
Mike
was a character.
Big-ass fanny pack
and this ponytail
and his voice...
I can still hear it.
You know how you don't see
somebody forever
and you kind of lose their...
lose their face?
I can hear his voice.
Yeah, John.
Yeah!
I felt really close to Mike
almost from the get go.
Come back
over, Matt.
Yeah, Matt.
He always had my back.
I just felt like
this was different.
This wasn't some guy I was
calling every once in a while,
like, "Hey, man,
I need a sticker".
He was, like, in your grill
every five seconds,
and not in a bad way,
just close to you,
making sure things
were going your way.
Next up, we got
a local boy from Vista.
Yeah, man. Whoo!
Mike really cared
for everybody
and was trying
to make it all work.
Ripped it! That was it, dude.
That was it.
There was
so much new young talent
that was coming along in this
new wave of skateboarding.
We were right
in the middle of it,
and it was being created
right then and there.
Mike and I were talking,
and Mike's like,
"Have you heard
of this kid, Danny Way?"
I go, "Yeah, of course.
Yeah, he rides for Powell".
He's like,
"That kid's phenomenal.
It'd be great
if we had him".
I go, "You're not gonna
take him from Powell".
Powell's the number-one company
at the time.
This became
a challenge for Mike,
you know, just personally,
because Danny was on
and then he was off.
It took us a while.
All of a sudden a contest
comes up in Houston,
Shut Up & Skate,
big, big vert contest
on the metal ramp back there.
Danny was upset
because Powell
wouldn't pay
for him to go there.
And Mike said, "No problem.
I'm gonna have you go there,
but by the time you do,
you're riding for me".
For me to leave Powell
to join a start-up company
was a big deal, but Mike
was the reason why.
Mike just had a...
had a calmness about him,
had a rational disposition
that made Danny comfortable.
He couldn't do
what Danny did,
but he could cultivate
that out of Danny.
Okay, in first place,
you already know this guy.
His name is Danny Way,
got first place
in sponsored AM this morning.
It never occurred to me Danny
was gonna be a pro skater.
I just thought
it was kid's stuff.
I didn't really know
that what was going on
with Danny
was gonna go somewhere.
Mike took Danny
under his wing,
and Danny really liked
being associated with Mike
because he just had
that ability to get you
to want to be involved
in what he was doing
and believe in
what he was doing.
- I'll go like this.
- Wave like that.
- Cut.
- I gotta stop.
- I can't look at Danny...
- Get over something.
Start back.
Get back a little ways.
Get back a little ways.
Back right here.
There you go. Okay, now go in,
now go crazy.
Mike, Tony,
let me in!
Mike obviously understood the
situation with Danny's home life,
and it was an instant
connection between those two
and immediately took on a sort of
father-figure type relationship.
- Hey.
- Hey, Danny, what's up?
I want to get a part
in the video.
Hey, look, man,
video's already done.
It's all done. There's
no more room in it.
Maybe you can be
in the next one.
But if you need
a board or something,
- talk to Tony.
- Watch! Watch this.
Tim wasn't
around that much
after him
and Mary split up.
It was becoming
more difficult to figure out
a way to still be
part of their lives.
And him and Danny,
I think, grew apart.
You need a father,
and so if you don't have one
you're looking for one,
and if there's somebody
that can be that for you,
you grab on.
Mike reassured me
that Danny would go somewhere
in the world
with his skateboarding.
He didn't know
where or what,
but he said, "He's got
a lot of potential,
and I'd like
to see him use it".
Here comes Danny Way.
He is really hot.
This kid is 15 years old.
He's the youngest pro
on the tour.
He took a real bad spill
this morning.
He is doing a lot
of flashy tricks out there.
He hurt himself
in practice,
came down
on his tailbone very hard,
and yet he has managed
to pull himself together
and get a nice routine
going here. Oh, very nice!
He does
a 360 transitioning
from the big ramp
to the small ramp.
Very nicely done.
That'll be it
for Danny Way.
Pulling him
out of school,
it was the hardest thing
for me to do.
So, I had to take
a leap of faith.
I believed
in my son enough
to believe that his dream
would come true.
- First place, $2,500...
- Congratulations, Danny.
...goes to the youngest pro
on the circuit, Danny Way!
Danny, first of all, that was
an outstanding performance.
What do you think
did it for you today?
You had a lot
of competition.
Um...
basically, um...
Uhhhh...
Let's do it again,
take two.
Well, after a hard-fought
contest, this is our winner.
This is Danny Way, the
youngest pro on the tour.
Do you feel like you were hampered
by your injury at all today,
or did you skate
through the pain?
It was kind of hard in
practice, but in contest
I didn't think about
anything but staying on,
you know,
busting out.
Well, that was one heck
of a comeback.
Again, he hit
the floor.
I saw him a little earlier,
and he hit it hard.
He wasn't feeling
too good,
but he came back
and won the contest.
Once again, Danny Way
is our champion,
and that'll do it now
from Lansing, Michigan.
Quiksilver had
bought DC Shoes,
so we go for a meeting
with Bob McKnight,
the chairman
of Quiksilver.
And Bob writes a check
for the money we needed.
That was one
of those moments where
it finally strikes you
and was like, wait a second.
This really is going
to happen now.
This is a team effort,
so we brought
JT and Brian in
because they are
the experts in big structures.
With Danny, you're
dealing with history.
The stuff he does is always
so new and so creative,
like, there is
no norm to go from.
There is no fulcrum point
to start from.
It's like, okay, let's try it
with this and see what happens.
I have a lot to do
with these guys' careers,
making and breaking them.
I want to see Danny succeed,
that's what I'm there for.
I don't want to see
anybody get hurt.
The challenges
of building a structure
that has not
been built before was huge,
never mind
in a different country.
Probably get it
here somewhere.
Twenty-one meters.
Twenty-one meters converts
into 68 feet, 10 inches.
- What is it?
- Sixty-eight feet, 10 inches.
- Hello?
- Danny, JT.
JT,
how you doing, man?
- Good, how you doing?
- Good.
Hey, I got
a quick question for you.
I'm sitting here with Brian,
and the scaffolding's going up.
Everything's going good, but we're
actually pulling measurements
off of, like, distances
and stuff.
It looks like
right now, um,
the distance is
between 65 and 70-foot gap.
Is that
too gnarly or...?
- No.
- Okay.
Nothing's too gnarly.
It's no more
than 70.
Well, 70, that's getting up
there, I mean, yeah.
It changes the game
a little bit, which is good.
- I can do that.
- Okay.
I'm not worried
about it. Um...
Okay, I was worried about,
like we discussed earlier,
there was a good 55-foot gap
now that got changed.
I want you
to come out here
and know what you're
getting yourself into
so you're mentally
prepared for it.
No, I'm cool with it.
I'm cool.
- All right, Danny.
- All right, man.
Take care. Talk to you
in a couple of hours.
- Sounds good, JT.
- Okay, bye.
That same thing
that makes Danny tick
is what makes me tick.
I was just like,
"Yeah, but I've never
done this before".
We all set goals.
It's what makes
you go forward.
Goals can be dangerous.
I'd be coming home
from work
and he had
the little ninja motorcycles,
and I'd see "whooomp!"
right past me, and I'd go,
"God darn it,
there goes Danny!"
And I turn my car around,
try and chase him down
because he'd
already had it out
with the police
in Fallbrook several times.
One of my prominent memories
of Danny's early success
was when he started getting
a little bit of money.
He could start affording
his fantasies and things.
Quality American machine.
All of a sudden he started
buying all this stuff,
and he had, like,
motorcycles.
He'd ride them all over town,
no license, nothing.
It was just, like,
wild child.
- Going M.T?
- Yeah.
I'm gonna seriously pack
off the side, watch.
No, just go
straight up and down.
Oh, shit!
The house out in rainbow
that they lived in,
this was out in the middle
of nowhere up on a hill.
Most of the time we had
the house to ourselves.
Thought you were gonna
land on your back.
I remember pulling up
and bullet holes in the cars
and had the ramp there
and everything
and just skate house.
It was lawless.
Absolute lawlessness.
Danny didn't grow up the same
way a lot of other people did.
He dropped out of school
in ninth grade
and then he went into
this skateboard touring mode.
There he is!
And he started hanging out
with older kids right away,
so he really jumped
that period that's formative
in all of our lives
of going through high school
and finding out who we are
and developing ourselves.
He was just chasing
his passion at that point,
which anybody else
would do.
In the mid-'80s, there,
a lot of parks were going out.
I just remember seeing
Del Mar in chunks.
It was pretty devastating
on a lot of people.
People were
taking to the streets
because they had nowhere else to
go, and if you wanted to skate,
you just figured out how to use
the urban landscape,
learn how to use rails and
ledges and benches and stairs.
The city was
the skate park.
That didn't hurt
that bad.
We were
skating everything.
Calvary chapel was the hub.
Like, everybody went there.
Everybody would
meet there,
and then we'd all go
wherever we would go.
Danny grew up
skating Del Mar,
riding transitions...
Naturally talented
little kid.
Then this whole evolution
of skateboarding
in the late '80s
into '90s of street skating,
he adapted to that.
He could do anything
he wanted,
whether it be
in street or vert, anything.
And it looked right.
It looked good.
Danny
was doing some
of the heaviest street
skating at the time.
Make it, D. Yeah!
He was taking
those skills to the ramp
and opening a whole
new doorway to tricks.
Because he had
that background
of being able to ride
everything else.
It kind of led him
down a different path.
Yeah, Danny,
that was it!
We'd hear, like,
rumblings of, like,
"Oh, there's gonna be
this new super company
"and it's gonna
be called Plan B,
"and there's gonna be
all these crazy people
that are gonna skate
for it".
Danny Way,
Matt Hensley, Mike Carroll,
Sean Sheffey,
and Rick Howard. That's it.
- Cut and dry?
- Cut and dry, that's it.
It felt the same way
to me that I'm sure it felt
to the general public
when the USA finally decided
to put together
a dream team for basketball.
It floored everyone.
Plan B set the bar so high
as far as a group of guys
all in one place.
It set the standard.
And these guys were
creating something
that wasn't there before,
tricks that weren't
there before.
It was this
totally new thing.
And Mike Ternasky saw
what they could do,
and he brought
the most out of them.
When I had to film
something tough,
you'd want
Mike T. there.
You'd want
that reinforcement
while you were trying
whatever you were trying.
'Cause in those days,
you know, some of that stuff
you just didn't really know
if it was even possible.
- Yeah!
- Yeah, Matt!
He gave you something that
just blew up inside of you.
That just like, oh my gosh,
I can't sit still now.
I have to work for this.
Yes! Hey, Rodney.
Push.
That accountability,
like, we need that.
Mike saw different things
in me that I didn't see.
He was a big part of making me
a believer in myself.
You got it, dude.
Just go right now.
You're not too tired.
Do it again.
Talent only takes
you so far.
It's putting
your head down
and going that does
the rest of it.
Danny worked really hard.
It wasn't like it was
just easy for him.
We'd all slam
and get back up,
but most of us
would stop.
He never did.
He just kept pushing.
That was
real good.
If he says he's
gonna pull this off,
there's not a doubt
he's gonna do this.
If he didn't,
he would do it
until he either broke
his leg or something.
You know,
he would not stop.
Like Terminator.
He had a new peer group
that he needed respect from
and that he needed
to be accepted by,
so he was pushing the limits
of what he was capable of
and in doing so, you know,
shifting the paradigm.
- Whoa!
- Aah!
That's
good enough, dude.
Danny Way could have
done anything.
Anything.
Danny Way,
skater of the year,
selected by the readers
of Thrasher magazine.
During that era, he was
also a pro snowboarder,
a gnarly motocross dude,
and a super good surfer.
The higher your goal,
the more focused
and intense you get.
I don't know Danny's
whole process,
but I can imagine
he has to get himself
into a place
that's pretty intense.
And it's got
to make interaction
with other people
pretty hard.
And, uh, it's probably
not all healthy.
Danny was a teenager
with no parental supervision
with a peer group around him
that could perpetuate
his adolescence.
Got two
of these babies.
Mike wasn't
with Danny 24/7.
He knew there was
a lot of partying going on,
and had no problem
calling anyone out
for anything
at anytime,
so we just got better
at hiding it.
You know,
it's like any kid.
The mom's like,
"My son's an angel".
Meanwhile the kid goes out the
back door just ripping shit up.
We're seriously gonna
jack someone up.
That peer group really, I think,
pushed him in directions
that wasn't the best
or the healthiest for him.
Someone right now
is, like, walking
and they have no idea
what's gonna happen!
Like, they're
peacefully walking.
There was no parents
to stop anything,
so whatever stupid idea
that we came up with,
that's what we did.
Oh, my god,
you missed!
Smashing something
and running away
and getting
away from the police
is a great
bonding experience.
That's a great way
to build a friendship.
I didn't do shit!
- No?
- No, bitch!
The type of men
that are risk-takers,
they have
a certain recklessness.
I think that's a necessity
in what we do.
Ha ha!
Whoa!
If you can make it
through that reckless time
and maybe find
your direction
and kind of straighten
the car out, you survive it...
But in the beginning,
you have a lot of ammunition
and you're shooting
at every direction,
waiting to see
if it hits something.
I was downtown skating
and I looked across the street
and both my parents were, like,
standing looking at me.
I knew it, immediately,
when I looked up
and saw them the way
they were just looking
across the street at me.
I was like, "Oh, god,
what happened?"
Mike was really happy with the
way things were going, you know?
A lot of things
were lining up,
and his guys were
doing good in contests.
Colin and Danny were
in the plane with him.
He told them that he had done
so much of what he wanted to do.
You know, if he died
right now, he'd be happy.
Well, I heard he
was going into work.
I think Dave Andrews actually
witnessed this accident,
or he was actually
driving to work
and he saw that
there was an accident,
and had no idea that Mike was
actually in that accident.
Yeah, I mean, just,
I mean, devastating,
and, you know,
yeah, it was just devastating.
He was pulling out
off a stoplight,
and an older lady
ran the red light.
T-boned him.
When Mike passed away,
I was just like,
"Shit, man.
This sucks for Danny.
What is he gonna do now?"
It was just absolutely
tragic for him to lose Mike
because I think it was at such
a pivotal point in his life.
Short of our stepdad Tim,
he was the only other person
in Danny's life
that really grounded him.
He didn't have
that sounding board
that could really tell him
morally or ethically,
whatever, that what you're
doing is wrong or right.
I was a friend,
and there's no way
I could be that sort
of mentor to him.
I had no idea that
that was on the horizon.
I always felt, like,
this sense of security
with Mike
in the picture.
"If all else fails,
I can call Mike,"
and I was
completely lost.
We're hearing that there's
problems in the building,
but we're listening
for the key things:
It's finished
and it's safe.
At that level
of danger,
there's no room
for any error in the design.
- Thirty-two inches.
- Okay.
If it's off a half inch,
that's all the difference
in the world.
Hitting the quarterpipe
at 50 miles an hour
going into a ramp
three stories tall
and flying three stories
out of it,
that thing better
be perfection.
Skateboarders
are grown men
in T-shirts and shorts
and puffy shoes.
The Chinese guys don't like
being told
what to do by grown men
in kids' shorts.
We know how
to fix this.
It'll work if they will do
what we ask them to do.
I know, but...
He think you change
your mind many times...
We haven't changed shit!
Come over here and tell them
exactly what I said.
This is the plan,
the blueprint.
It's so hard to communicate
with the Chinese,
and the whole process
takes four or five times
as long
as it normally would.
And then the pride gets in the
way, and that's even harder.
Do you know
distance?
How much do you want
to move the scaffolding?
- Thirty.
- Thirty.
Eighty.
Eighty inches back.
A cultural barrier,
that's a big one.
If JT and Brian
can't do what they do,
Danny can't do
what he does.
It's definitely...
one of the most
challenging situations.
I've just never
failed before,
and I don't want
to fail now.
Danny got
injured surfing.
He got taken down
by a wave
and driven into the bottom
of the ocean headfirst.
It literally could
have killed him.
I remember him
coming home in a lot of pain
and describing the story,
and I was like,
"Yeah, whatever. Surfing".
And then he's like, "No, no, no.
It's really bad".
He was
very afraid then.
He didn't know if he was
ever gonna skateboard again.
He was
in a lot of pain,
and he went to try
to relieve some of the pain,
and a chiropractor
complicated things
and made things worse
instead of better.
There was some concerns
that he wasn't gonna
be 100% ever again.
I didn't have
any experience
with medical trainers.
Skateboarding was never
sophisticated in that way,
so when I finally got hurt
at the level where I needed,
like, real serious attention
from legitimate doctors,
it wasn't available.
I remember
visiting him,
and I had to lift him
out of the bathtub.
I was only there
for a week.
He dealt with so much
of this on his own,
like, literally at home
with a broken neck.
I'd watched him
for six months
going from doctor
to doctor.
He was all over the map
just trying to find
some sort of solution.
When Danny came to me,
he'd already had
the injury for six months.
Danny's neck
was like stone.
Any movement of his neck could
literally tear his spinal cord.
So, you know, I knew
I had my hands full,
and I knew that this was
a coin toss at very best.
That moment
in time was one
of the darkest moments
I've had in my whole life.
My motivation was out the door,
like, I just wanted to give up.
I said, "Danny, I'm gonna need
you to bring a skateboard here,
and I just need
to see you ride it".
He said, "Paul, I can't
ride a skateboard".
I said, "Danny,
look, I don't want
to delude you into thinking
you can be fixed up
because this is
a career-ending injury".
When he's not skating
or he's not skating well,
he himself doesn't have the same
confidence when he walks around.
At that time,
he was emotionally...
and confidence was a lot lower
than I'd seen him before that.
Danny was
literally sweating
when he took
the skateboard out.
You could see he was
paralyzed with fear.
Whenever you have
a traumatic injury
or life-threatening
situation,
it's time
for reflection.
Can you handle now
not being invincible?
Athletes
are used to winning
because they're exercising
their strengths.
So all of a sudden
when they are left
without their strength,
they have to explore
their weakness.
When you get hurt,
you kind of analyze yourself
and question
why you're doing it,
what you're doing it for,
will you be able to do it again,
and all those things
that dictate
whether you're just good
or you're great.
We have Danny Way
riding for Plan B.
He was told
he would never be able
to compete
as a skateboarder again.
Four months from the day
he walked into my office,
he won his first contest
back on a skateboard.
All right, Danny!
Let's hear it
for Danny Way!
It was really
quite a moment of joy
and celebration
for both of us,
because I saw
the warrior in there.
I saw everything
a great coach
or therapist hopes that
they can see in people
because it's really
the stuff of genius.
Danny was in and out.
You didn't see him all
the time,
but when you did, you're like,
"Whoa, it's Danny Way".
There was a lot
going on with him
at that point,
and a lot more drive.
The injury kind of
taught him
"I might not have another
chance to do this".
He's always
gonna rise up.
Man's broken his neck and was
out, never gonna skate again.
Well, that was just another
challenge for him.
Physically, mentally...
You just can't
break this dude.
I saw Danny, I hadn't
seen him forever,
and he was going so hard,
just attacking it.
The vert ramp
couldn't contain Danny.
The ramp was
too small for this dude.
If you built something bigger,
it could show his real ability.
Mike and I had
always talked about building
these monster oversized ramps
that'd break the world record.
But the ramp size
that I need to build
is gonna cost
too much money
and when would
that ever happen.
But Mike was always
like, "It'll happen.
One day we'll get it
figured out".
Once DC started,
it was all about the finances
to do something
like this,
and Ken and me realized
if you built something bigger,
it could showcase
Danny's ability way more.
For me,
Mike Ternasky
is probably
the biggest inspiration.
He was very good
at putting people
in situations
for them to succeed,
so I wanted to facilitate
ways for Danny
to explore his talents
and to expand
upon it.
Making Danny's vision
come to life wasn't easy.
Driving up
to this airfield,
I see, like,
what looks like a quarterpipe.
I'm looking,
and I was like, "Holy shit!
What is going to go down
on this right now?"
# Welcome to my world #
# Won't you come on in #
# Miracles, I guess #
# Still happen
now and then #
# Step into my heart #
# Leave your cares behind #
# Welcome to my world #
# Built with you in mind #
I remember
talking to him,
and he's like, "We're gonna
pull the helicopter in,
and I'm gonna jump
out of the helicopter".
I was like, "You're gonna jump out
of the helicopter into the ramp?"
I'm like, "Are you kidding?
Is he kidding?"
"Is he joking?"
"He's not joking".
Like, they would
let you do that?
They're gonna let you
get in the helicopter...
like, they can keep it up...
they're gonna let you do that?
He's like, "Yeah, we're
gonna do it right now".
"Okay," and then I thought,
"Are they messing with me?"
I end up getting in
with Danny.
It was pretty crazy
seeing him, like, filming him,
I'm like, "Holy shit,
this dude's jumping
out of a helicopter
into a ramp right now".
It went
from this incredible day
to "I'm about to watch
this insane disaster".
If it goes too early, you're
jumping 15 feet to coping.
If you jump just
a little bit off,
you're jumping 30 feet
to the flat ground.
I was, like,
so sketched out...
like, I was so off
in the corner
just, like, on each one,
just like, "Ooh!"
Him jumping out
of the helicopter
I thought was
the coolest thing ever.
I was just like,
"Oh, my god!"
It was
absolutely mind-blowing.
When he landed
into that thing,
it felt so
absolutely incredible.
Everybody was gonna
have to step up
after seeing that
in the magazine.
That's Danny.
He dreamed something up
that nobody else
on this planet would have,
and just figured out
how to make it reality.
Tim was amazed
that Danny
had even visioned
that ramp,
and that
it could be skated.
He was pretty proud.
Shortly after that,
Danny got married
and had a son, Ryden.
Danny was a father
similar to Tim.
It was like dj vu
all over again.
What Tim planted
in Danny
was the opportunity
to experience his capabilities.
That stayed with Danny.
He knew he could overcome
pretty much anything
that was put
in front of him.
Everybody
grows up different.
I think Danny
had a hard time,
and skateboarding
was his... his thing.
It was like going
to a doctor,
and the doctor says,
"Here are some pills. Take them".
Not with Danny.
"Look, you have some problems.
Here's a skateboard.
That's gonna make you okay".
Skateboarding brings
it all right to now.
There's a lot of times
I'm up there
and my head's
going crazy,
and every time I drop in,
it just dissolves all that.
Tim was out surfing
with some friends of his.
He was coming
back in on his board,
and he collapsed
in the beach.
He passed away
doing what he loves to do.
Danny felt a real loss,
and I think it brought back
feelings that Danny had
from other losses
in his life.
There's been a lot
of, like, trauma in my life,
and the only thing that's steered
me back on track is my board.
Some of us
use our pain
and our anger as a motive
to achieve things,
and that motive
is very, very powerful,
but it also is
a double-edged sword.
Skateboarders look
at the world differently,
but Danny's unique
because his gaze
is a lot wider
than most skateboarders'.
Leave it to Danny
to not be satisfied,
so I need something bigger,
I need something faster.
I need something crazier
because my head
is in a different place.
Whatever else is going on
in skateboarding,
that doesn't matter,
because this is what I need
to do with skateboarding.
I never imagined
anybody going that big.
That was the first time
anybody had even seen
anything like that.
That was a shock, I think, to
the entire skateboarding world.
He could very well
have built something
much, much smaller.
No one else would've
done it that way.
No one would've
convinced people
to put that much money
into building that,
and then somehow thought they
were gonna be able to do it.
Danny used
his entire skill set
to do the whole
megaramp movement.
His fearlessness,
his vertical skill set,
his street knowledge...
It's amazing.
It's a lifetime
of effort to do that.
He's the pioneer
of the gnarliest thing
there is to do
on a skateboard.
It goes beyond
skateboarding.
This is now
life and death stuntmanship,
True daredevil stuff.
You can die.
If you look
at the megaramp, I mean,
that's the result of Danny
being fed up
of having
to compete on vert
and saying, "You know what?
I'm better than this.
I'm gonna create something new
that's gonna jump everyone".
So, he created
his own event
on his battlefield,
you know,
like that he was
gonna excel at.
I really admired
and looked up to guys
like Danny Way,
guys that had
this completely other idea
that was, to most people,
crazy or insane,
but it was something
that worked in their head,
and they were able to start this whole
movement in this other direction.
They were able to start
their own sports.
The X-Games contest
is the gnarliest thing
I've ever seen
live skateboarding.
I felt like I was watching
gladiator or something.
Skateboarding
is just such a notch up
from a lot of sports
as far as how tough you have
to be to get that good.
I think that,
in a lot of ways,
it gives you strength
for the rest of your life.
In order
to achieve greatness,
you have to go through
a lot of pain.
You definitely
have setbacks,
but in order to achieve
that success,
you have to push through.
You're gonna have
to battle injury.
Oh, my gosh, Danny Way!
One to the world!
You kill me!
Yeah!
Why keep going? Is staying undefeated
really that important to you?
Naw, it's more... more my
passion for skateboarding
and part
of the challenge
sometimes is
battling the injuries
and, uh, you know,
it's always gratifying
to push the human,
you know, uh,
the human potential
as far as how much abuse
you can take
and come back from.
Danny! Whoo!
The very best guys
are the ones
that are willing
to push it past the limit
and take
those chances
to get
to that next level.
You have to believe
that you can do something
that nobody else
has done,
and somehow that concept
has to become reality.
From the very beginning,
it was totally
a different type
of experience, for sure.
It all happened
pretty quickly.
Danny was gonna
jump the Great Wall,
we were going
to shoot it.
I remember flying there
on the night of fourth of July
and taking off from LAX
and seeing all the fireworks.
There wasn't
a lot of information
about what
was gonna happen.
I didn't know anything about
the dimensions of the ramp.
We didn't know
what it was built on.
I hadn't seen photos.
We were all
really curious,
I think, to what exactly
it was gonna be like.
The week leading up to it,
it was pretty nerve-wracking.
These guys were just
working day and night,
so it was a definite rush
to make it happen.
The ramp was something
on such another level.
I would've never imagined
that it was gonna be
this 65-foot roll-in
built on top of a wall.
If something happened,
you'd just fall straight down.
This is
a structure of a size
that one man on the planet
maybe can do.
Now that's
a quarterpipe.
Now, that's what
we're talking about.
Oh, my god.
Jumping
the Great Wall is insane,
but then there's
a 32-foot tall quarterpipe
that he's gonna be charging
towards after jumping the wall,
and this thing's,
like, three stories tall!
He's gonna go 30...
he's gonna go
35 feet on this air!
He's gonna be
70 feet in the air.
Right here's
a good ten foot of air,
just rolling
down this thing.
Once you realize
that this is what you do
and this is who you are,
then you're like,
now I'm ready to really
put it on the line,
and now I need
to up the ante.
There's this quest
not so much for perfection,
but it's a quest
for significance or meaning
or that I contributed
or that I changed things
or that I mattered.
A guy like Danny,
he's only gonna participate
if he can offer something
that will change things.
To me, like,
that's honor.
I never would've thought
that I'd be here
to watch my friend
launching over the wall,
and it's hard
to even grasp, like,
the size of this
without being here.
This is bigger than the
megaramps... the super mega.
I remember going there
the first day and looking at it.
It was built
on scaffolding.
It was sketchy.
It took forever
to get up there.
It was definitely
not stable.
You could
feel it moving.
They would never let anyone
build something like that here.
You go up and you look down,
and it's just 100 feet down.
I was like, "Man, I hope
this is okay".
Like, "I really hope
this is all right".
This whole thing
is shaking around.
Don't move like that
and it won't shake.
But watch.
Literally, watch.
Feel the whole tower?
There is
an addiction to progression.
You get this incredible buzz
when you land something
the first time.
when you have
that mindset,
it doesn't matter
how successful you are.
You have to keep
challenging yourself,
you have to keep
doing it,
and at some point
that becomes a curse.
Danny didn't go
to the Great Wall of China
uncertain
that he could do it.
To the average person
it seems far-fetched,
but he knows
what he's doing.
He's been skating probably
just as long as I've been alive.
Of course
there's human limits,
but he understands
what he is
or isn't capable of.
It's a different breed
of human being.
It's Laird Hamilton,
it's Travis Pastrana,
it's Danny Way.
Everybody has
a self-preservation mechanism
in their mind
blocking you
from being fearless.
They don't have it.
I feel I've always been
very good at risk analysis.
Everyone says
you gotta be fearless
to do what we do,
but it's not true.
I think anyone fearless
gets hurt too quick
to ever be great
at anything.
they might get
a shade nervous,
but never once do they
ever cross their mind
What might
happen to them.
The only thing
they think about
is how they're
gonna make it.
Once you lose the fear of death,
you really learn how to live.
A lot of people
are just so paranoid
to get injured
or for failure
that they never let themselves
step up and live life.
Well, I think we should have
an extension up there.
I need...
I want the speed.
We could get
four feet taller on it.
Four foot taller. That thing
looks so gnarly already.
I'd rather have
that up there the first go
so I overshoot it
than undershoot it.
If I land on that deck
it's gonna be...
I'd rather land halfway down
than land on the deck.
Better to have too much speed
than not enough,
so at the last minute
we decided to go a little higher
and built a little
four-foot extension
so Danny can pump
off this thing
to get
a lot more speed.
At some point
you have to realize
how much do you
really love skating?
Are you willing to risk not
having it in your life anymore
because you want to do
that one last thing?
The day before
the official event,
Danny says,
"I wanna try a jump".
I didn't know if he
was supposed to practice
or not supposed
to practice.
We were pretty much
just keeping on eye on him
and seeing
what he was doing.
He wasn't supposed
to skate it,
so we were sitting
there all day,
and he's kind
of tinkering with the ramp
and finally
the Chinese officials
that were there to, like,
look at everything,
and these dudes
are pretty serious,
so we waited
until they bounced,
and he was like,
"All right, I'm going for it".
I just ran across
this bridge to shoot it.
I just hear someone saying,
"Hey, Danny's gonna take a run".
There was no siding,
no safety nets, nothing.
I'm like, "Oh, my god,
this can't be good".
Danny will admit
that he's scared.
He'll admit
that he's scared
standing on top
of the roll-in
at the megaramp
that he's scared of heights.
It's got
my heart moving.
Whatever he does
to channel that fear out
is something
that I don't think
most living people
ever learn to do.
You are rolling
down this massive structure
into the complete unknown.
It's hard to imagine
a lot of other things
that could be
any more terrifying.
When you finally do push off
and you start going down,
there's no going back.
Oh! Oh!
Hey!
Danny!
It was terrible.
Terrible.
I didn't know
if he had a broken neck
or if he was dead
or, you know,
he'd broken his leg
or what.
All you can do
is just sit there
and watch it and hope
that he's okay.
I'm speechless.
Speechless, man.
That was like
a car accident.
No skateboarder has
ever slammed like that.
God damn.
Dude.
I was like, "If this thing
is cancelled right now,
that's fine by me.
Danny's okay".
You need ice
on it immediately.
Ice right now, please,
and then we need this wrapped.
We need
more roll-in, man. Fuck!
His foot
was destroyed.
All I'm gonna do now is wrap
it so it doesn't swell, okay?
I'm over this stuff.
I just lost about
a year of my life
from standing
up there already.
We rush him to the hospital
and he's like,
"Ray, like, I just
don't wanna know.
I don't wanna know
if it's broken or not".
They are pissed.
We got a call basically
in the middle of the night
from the major sponsor
to say that
Danny isn't jumping
without major changes.
He came up short,
and we need to fix it.
We're gonna shorten
the gap by ten feet,
so that's what
our mission is now.
There's
a selfish aspect to putting
these really difficult goals
upon yourself
and putting yourself
at risk because
there are people
around you that love you
and they want
to see you survive.
They want to see
you grow old,
but you have
such tunnel vision
you don't hear
any of those voices
because you have convinced
yourself you're capable of it.
I think Danny wants
his boy to see him
be all the man he is,
and that means do what he does.
Not like, "Oh, now
that I have my son,
I'm not gonna ride
the giant ramp".
I don't think so.
I remember him
calling the room
the morning of the jump
and being like,
"Yeah," like,
kind of laughing.
On the phone, he was like, "I guess
it's a lot of pressure, huh?"
I was like,
"Yeah, do you think?"
'Cause he couldn't
move the foot.
It was his back foot,
and that's how you steer
your skateboard.
If he doesn't steer
his skateboard right,
he's going off the side
and he's not gonna make it.
The next day came,
and all of a sudden
it's not practice anymore.
It's this huge thing.
There's people
running everywhere.
There's crowds.
There's camera crews.
Hopefully this works.
He's gonna try it.
There's nothing
that's gonna stop him.
Danny has to get his mind
set before he does jump.
He's gotta be alone.
When he went in
to do his meditating thing,
I went in
to wish him luck,
and I said, "Hey, Danny,
Tim wants to do
the jump with you".
And he goes,
"What do you mean?"
And I go, "Put this
in your pocket
so your dad's with you
when you do the jump".
I would've never
have started skateboarding.
He never
in a million years
thought I would ever think
to bring some
of his dad's ashes to him
so Tim could be there
with him
and make him land.
He needed skating
to kind of get through
his hardships in life,
and once you get through
something like that
and it's like,
okay, now you're indebted.
He knows that skating
made him who he is.
Now he's giving everything
he can to skating.
We all went down
some dark roads,
but it made us stronger,
a lot stronger people.
There is a lot
of anticipation.
You can just hear it
in the crowd,
and I remember
there being a lot of waiting
because it was
a live television thing.
Twenty-five million people
are gonna see this.
Danny Way is
in a very tricky position.
He could encourage
a tremendous number of athletes
to try things
that are dangerous,
but he's also gotta honor
the pioneer in him
that wants to share
what is possible.
I cannot even imagine
what was going through his mind,
but he had put himself in a
situation where he had to do it.
He knew that,
and that's how he does it.
If you want
to live a life
where you're
breaking ground,
that's an uncomfortable
place to be.
It's full of uncertainty,
it's full of challenge,
it can be full
of disappointment,
and Danny's one of those people
that can live in that space.
You get yourself
all the way to the top
of the mountain,
and what's left but lightning?
And that, to me,
just says Danny.
What are you doing?
But what else
is left for you?
When he makes it,
you're emotionally involved.
Everyone there was.
Congratulations, Danny!
You're great!
I was so scared, I held
my breath all the way.
How do you feel?
I think I'm more scared
than you are, for sure.
So, are you satisfied
with this jump?
It felt great. I'm going to take another
jump just for personal satisfaction.
A lot of the people
that were doing that event
were just like,
"What's going on?
Why would he
do it again?"
But that's Danny.
Twenty-five million people
learned what makes Danny Way
Danny Way live
on Chinese television.
To do that
takes such a great dream
and a dreamer.
It's the greatest expression
of freedom
in a land
that is so controlled.
It makes you realize
anything's possible.
There are
only three people
with their name in gold
on the Great Wall,
and Danny's one of them.
And that, to me,
is so incredible.
My son has his name
on the Great Wall of China.
When he'd used to say crazy
things, I'd laugh and stuff.
I don't doubt anything
that he says
when it comes
to skateboarding anymore,
and I never will again.
Where we came from had everything
do with kind of who we are.
People didn't like
people from Vista.
We felt like we
had more to prove.
Danny's proved it.
He did it for himself.
He really did.
And now he always tries
to make the sport
better and better
and better
'cause he knows
what it did for him.
What all the reasons are,
he may not know every reason,
but for whatever the reasons
are that made him feel good,
he wants other children
to experience that love
and that great feeling
of just going out and skating.
I don't think
I've been satisfied ever.
There's always an urge
to do something
above and beyond
what you've done before.
The new territory,
you know,
the land of the unknown,
the experimenting
with things that
could seem impossible
and defining it's possible,
those are the things
that drive me.
At the end of the day,
that's all that drives me.
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
Published 06/01/2013
"Are you crazy?
What do you think
you're doing?"
I didn't see it
as being a positive.
I saw it as Danny
gettin' killed.
Anyone can learn
anything they want.
It's all in your head.
You've just got
to spend time on it.
I don't know that a
lot of people really get Danny Way.
There's
a lot of guys that...
that'll do whatever it
takes to win.
Then there's guys that do whatever
it takes to push themselves,
guys that do whatever it takes
to progress their sport.
Danny's doing what he was meant
to do, and you can see that.
And very few people get to
experience that in their life.
When we first got
to the Great Wall,
We were just like,
"Oh, my god.
This guy
is gonna kill himself".
They would never let anyone
build something like that here.
There was a mountain biker
that jumped the wall
and careened
to the bottom, dead.
His ramp wasn't
built properly.
It was
gut-wrenching for me.
The outcome
of the end of it
was what I was
always afraid to face.
I'd heard
about China for years.
Danny was on a flight
and actually saw
the Great Wall from the plane.
And I remember
him joking like,
"Yeah, I'm gonna jump
over that thing".
I don't remember hearing
how it all came together.
I just kind of remember
hearing it was going to happen.
The role of a manager
is to make your visions
and your dreams real.
Danny wanted to jump
the Great Wall of China,
and Ray and I felt
that we could help do that.
This is
what the next chapter
of Danny's life
was all about,
and we were the guys
selected to make that happen.
So we go
to China fueled by a dream
and ambition
and nothing much else.
We pull up
to Juyoungguan Gate...
and it's impressive.
The wall,
in some spots is...
I guess it's just not as big
as I envisioned in some spots.
I wouldn't want
to cheat on this one,
so I'm trying to find
some section on...
We're trying to find
a section here
that would actually be
a legitimate jump for me.
There's definitely spots
on the wall that are enormous,
but there are some
that aren't, and I just...
you know,
I wouldn't feel right
unless I found a spot
that was really magnif...
magnisi... nificent.
Sorry, it's freezing out.
I can barely talk.
So, I think right here...
jumping from there
over to here
is the widest spot
of the wall,
which I feel does the most
justice for skateboarding
and the possibility of breaking
the world record.
We come
back from China,
and Danny's on the phone
with me at midnight
going, "Dude,
is this real?"
And I'm like,
"I don't know.
"But here's your job:
"Prepare,
have your bag packed,
and you're jumping until I'm
telling you you're not jumping".
I think
the story really started
before my brother
and I were even born.
It started out with my mom
and my father getting together,
and then taking off
and going up the coast
in their VW van
and following the hippie trail.
Everything
that Dennis
ever told me
about life happened.
Within 45 minutes
of me first meeting him,
he told me that I was
gonna have two sons with him,
and that he was put
on this earth
to teach me
how to be a survivor.
From that moment on,
we were connected.
Dennis and I
were on an adventure.
We went up to Oregon,
and all the pieces
of the puzzle
started being
put together.
Damon was so mellow,
and Danny wore me down.
That first year,
I thought I was gonna lose
my mind with him.
Little did I know
years down the road
I would go through
a lot more
than what I went through
the first year of life with him.
We got tired
of the rain in Oregon,
so we ended up moving
back to Carlsbad.
Dennis's ex-wife worked
for the gas
and electric company.
When we went to get
our electricity hooked up,
that's when she found out
Dennis was back in town,
and she had him
put in jail
for 90 days
for a $50 child-support payment.
And nine days
after he was in there,
he got hung
in jail.
That day was
the worst day of my life.
And that's where the kids
and I began our journey
as the three musketeers,
I call it.
I don't really remember
my father dying.
I don't really remember
the period of time
before him
and our stepdad, Tim,
but I clearly remember
us living with Tim
after my mom and him
got married.
Tim was like
a kid himself,
so when he met Damon
and Danny, it was on.
Tim came into
my brother and mine's life
and took on
that father-figure role.
He surfed every day,
and lived that
surfer/bohemian lifestyle.
We started tuning in
to that piece of culture
that was really free.
He gave my kids
exactly what they needed
at that point
in their lives.
He was really good
with his hands and wood,
and he would build
us skateboards.
He wouldn't go buy us a skateboard,
he'd actually build it,
and the thing would have
its shape and everything.
It was amazing.
We really little, and we'd ride
them around out front.
Danny was a three-year-old,
and he mastered how to make
that skateboard work for him.
He figured out that
if he put a knee on the board
and pushed
with his other foot,
he could keep up with Damon
trying to get
away from him on his bike.
Danny rode
it fearlessly.
Tim gave them an opportunity
to experience that,
wasn't overprotective,
wasn't afraid
of them getting hurt.
Everywhere we went,
we had to take the skateboard.
So, the skateboard was...
the beginning
of Danny Way.
There has
to be some sort of visual
that captivates you
in such a way
that you just
fall in love with it
so that nothing will get
in the way of you
wanting to get on your board
and create,
play, and have fun
and outdo your own limitations,
and I think that moment
that captivated Danny Way
was that Del Mar moment.
I remember
my brother and I, like,
seeing it from the freeway
and seeing guys
flying out of pools and stuff,
and we were freaking out.
My dad turned around
and took us straight there
and got us memberships.
I was too young,
so we had to lie about my age.
When the park started
in 1978,
it was the full-on boom
of skateboarding.
We had, like, six people
working at a time.
You know,
I think of those days...
I'd wake up
at 8:00 in the morning
and go to Denny's,
get breakfast,
come to the park, be the
first one in there skating.
It was sheer passion.
Soon as I hit
that park, padded up,
paid my money,
and, like, skated in there,
I just knew I wanted
to be part of that scene.
I still remember
my initial experience
at the park.
To hear the sound
of the wheels
and the bearings
on the concrete,
just, like,
that was it.
There was no turning back,
completely hooked.
All the best skateboarders
skated at Del Mar.
If you want to get better
and make a name
for yourself, it's there.
Del Mar definitely
defined my personality.
It gave me
a sense of identity.
It gave me a community,
a group that I really
enjoyed hanging out with,
and it set me apart
from the normal high school kid.
The first time I went to Del Mar
skate park, it was a done deal.
Like, I was addicted so fast
that it's the only thing
I could think about
from that point on.
Our stepfather, Tim, he
would take us to the skate park
when Danny was, you know, six years
old, and I was eight years old.
He'd go down and pay for them
to hang out there all day.
It was almost, for me,
like a baby-sitting program.
Some people spent
every waking hour at that park.
They came when it opened
at 9:00 in the morning
till 11:00 at night.
When I
first saw Danny,
he was just
a little kid from Vista
trying to come into this scene
that was Del Mar,
and, like, we were always
kind of tough on him.
Unfortunately
he was the little kid,
and we were
the big 14-year-olds,
so, you know,
picking on him,
hiding his board...
I was always smaller
than most my friends,
so I was in a position
where I had to earn respect,
and I always was trying
to prove myself.
We could tell Danny to do anything,
and he would do it.
We'd hang out with
our neighborhood friends then,
and we'd be like, "Hey, Danny,
go kiss that girl,"
and he would do it,
just whatever it took,
to get the attention
and respect of the group.
When I hit 28,
I started partying a lot.
I realized that
with alcohol and drugs
I could mask
the pain of Dennis dying.
I would leave and not come home
for a few days.
Mary had a hard time
letting go
of what happened
to, uh, Danny's father.
I think that haunted her,
and it affected the kids.
Our mom was gone a lot,
and so for Danny and I,
skateboarding really
became our family.
We were with each other
every single day skating.
It was just
what we did.
There was no alternative.
There was no option.
After a while,
I thought the grass was greener
on the other side,
and I caused my marriage
to go upside down.
And that's when Tim
and I parted the sheets.
I got a lot of backlash,
not so much from Damon,
but from Danny.
Danny's had
a level of anger inside him
for as long
as I can remember.
He had a particular thing
with my mom,
and I think a lot of that
was just Danny's anger
and rage around
losing our dad,
then losing
our stepdad.
My mom had
so many different boyfriends,
from drug dealers
to just abusive guys
who used to beat
the shit out of her
and my brother and I,
and, um, you know...
Yeah, it's just...
The police came
to our house a lot...
a lot in Vista.
So, my kids grew up
never knowing what they
were gonna come home to.
Whenever things
got really difficult at home,
Danny would always ask
to go live with Tim.
He was always so happy
around Tim.
He had a mentor,
he had somebody
that could support him
and act as a father figure
in his life.
You have scars from scraping
himself on the sidewalk.
You also have scars
in your mind
that you never
can get rid of.
Sometimes it's good
to talk about them,
but sometimes
it's just too painful.
So, what do we do?
We go out and find
something that's fun.
Sometimes it's dangerous,
but oh, well.
It's worth it.
We've always been out
to prove ourselves
because of having
to make up
for what we didn't have
in the family structure.
What comes along with that
is a strong, competitive spirit.
When I was watching Danny,
he had a focus.
He made up his mind
to do this one trick,
and he would keep trying it
until he did.
I mean, he'd get
beat up, man...
bam! sometimes...
but he'd just
get back up.
Will he survive?
Gale Webb was an interesting
person in Danny's life.
She took Danny
under her wing,
got him hooked up in the
demo circuit she was doing,
and provided some kind
of structure for Danny.
At the beginning,
he was kind of shy,
and then I generate
the excitement.
I go, "Oh, you like that?
Come on, we wanna hear you!"
He'd look at the crowd,
and he would just be different
with the crowd because they
were rooting for him,
and all of a sudden he'd start
pulling off some of these tricks.
When I first heard
Danny's name,
I know we were doing
a demo for a shop in Vista,
and the shop was a-buzz
about Danny.
Witt hired a limousine to take
Tony and some other people over,
and then I jumped
in the limo with them,
so that was the first time
I shot photos of Danny.
I think it was
a little intimidating,
because we all came,
like, the hoard of us came
and descended
on the ramp,
but at the same time he really
wanted to show what he had.
I saw Tony look.
He look at me
and he goes...
Let's hear it for Danny!
Whoo! Danny Way!
Two months
before the event,
we got permission to jump
at the Great Wall.
We have a location,
but we still need
money to build
the biggest skateboard ramp
that's ever been built.
DC, who was Danny's
main sponsor,
they were hearing us
going, "This looks real,"
but they weren't responding,
and it was radio silence.
When Danny
had the idea it was amazing,
but he was asking us
to put up a lot of money
to build a ramp that we don't know
what the end result's gonna be.
We had such
a short amount of time.
I knew right then and there
this was gonna be
a very massive project.
It was gonna take the toll
on all of us
in certain ways that we
just could never imagine.
I remember
spending the night
at Damon's and Danny's
all the time
because it was a little
more liberal than my house.
So, I got to just
kind of hang out,
I could just smoke cigarettes,
and skate the miniramp.
As a skateboarder and as a
young kid, it was badass.
I had this group
of friends in Vista,
this really talented group
of skateboarders,
and Danny really wanted
to be part of that group.
That was my crew.
It was my people.
We'd go see movies,
try to scam on chicks,
and skate all
the areas all around.
Hi, what's
your name?
- Courtney.
- Amy.
- Come over here.
- See if you can get a date and I'll film it.
Those were my friends
I skated with every day,
and Danny would tag along
and skate with us.
My brother always said
they were his friends.
They always defined me
as the young guy
who was too young
to be a part of their crew.
I was like, "We all skate.
What do you mean?"
I just remember
just boards flying,
you know, and elbows,
slight little punches
and jabs in the stomach
and boards in the shin.
Danny skated harder
than anybody else,
so he wasn't going anywhere, and
that caused friction, you know?
Damon really was
a big influence on Danny.
He just wanted to emulate
his older brother,
and he pretty much
would do anything...
or try to do anything
his older brother did.
We were skateboarding
Vista high. It was me and Damon.
This jackass rolls up
and just cold-cocked Damon.
And Damon fell down,
hit his head on the curb.
There was, like,
a little bit of a scuffle.
Then it kind of just died down.
It wasn't that big a deal.
We skated
for a little bit longer,
and then I took him home.
On the way home,
his head's, like...
"I got a headache," as you would
when you get punched in the face,
so it didn't alarm me.
I had gone to work.
Danny called me
and said,
"Mom, Damon's eyeballs
are in the back of his head".
And I hurried home,
and Damon was
in full-blown
epileptic seizures.
When we arrived
at Tri-City hospital,
the doctor said,
"Give or take 15 minutes,
we're gonna lose him".
His whole left side
had been paralyzed.
When Damon was
going through that injury,
I just remember Danny just being
really focused on skateboarding.
He was just ripping
harder than ever.
It's almost like he put
all his pain
or whatever he was going through
100% into skateboarding.
Danny was on a mission
to turn pro
for the both of them.
When I first
got introduced to Danny,
it was through
a friend of mine.
He goes, "There's this
little ripper kid
"named Danny Way,
and he should be on Hosoi.
"He's got guts
and he's just crazy.
He just goes for it". And I was
like, "Really? All right".
And then I meet him,
and he's this little blond kid
with braces
and, like, freckles,
and a little guy, and I'm like,
"This kid's crazy?"
You know what I mean? Looking at
him, you would never think...
You know, he looked like
Dennis the menace.
Next thing you know, we're
going to this demo in Arizona,
and we go to this hotel,
and he just... boom!
Front-flips off the bed
onto the ground.
I was like,
"This kid's crazy.
What can he do
on a skateboard?"
I was skating some miniramp
by myself or something.
My brother comes up,
and he's like, "Yo!
Danny Way is here!"
I had my idea
of what skateboarding could be
and how far a kid like myself
could take it at that age.
That whole perception
just got shattered on the spot.
When I think of a trick
and I'm sitting at my house,
I come down here
and learn it.
He would
just think about tricks,
and then he would
go out and do them.
Between 11 to 13 was
like a game changer.
I remember seeing Danny doing stuff
that doesn't even have names.
Just a clickety-clack blunt this
to board to shuffle to revert.
I don't think there's
ever been a 13-year-old kid
that would go after
the tricks
and just skating in general
the way Danny did.
I remember realizing
there's something about
the way he's skating
that I'm not gonna be able
to keep up with,
and here I am
in my first couple of years
of being a professional skater,
and I'm thinking,
"I'm done".
Yeah, Danny!
# Had no future #
# Remember youth #
# No pop culture #
There have been
a few people in skateboarding
that have truly been able
to not just spot talent
but allow that talent
to be the best it can be.
Mike saw talent,
but then he also was able
to bring it out of people.
Mike would take kids
under his wings
and help them along.
He could get you to do things
that you didn't want to do.
I mean, he would push you
to get you to go
to another level
that you're not
comfortable with.
But yet he could see it and say,
"Oh, yeah, you can do that".
Mike
was a character.
Big-ass fanny pack
and this ponytail
and his voice...
I can still hear it.
You know how you don't see
somebody forever
and you kind of lose their...
lose their face?
I can hear his voice.
Yeah, John.
Yeah!
I felt really close to Mike
almost from the get go.
Come back
over, Matt.
Yeah, Matt.
He always had my back.
I just felt like
this was different.
This wasn't some guy I was
calling every once in a while,
like, "Hey, man,
I need a sticker".
He was, like, in your grill
every five seconds,
and not in a bad way,
just close to you,
making sure things
were going your way.
Next up, we got
a local boy from Vista.
Yeah, man. Whoo!
Mike really cared
for everybody
and was trying
to make it all work.
Ripped it! That was it, dude.
That was it.
There was
so much new young talent
that was coming along in this
new wave of skateboarding.
We were right
in the middle of it,
and it was being created
right then and there.
Mike and I were talking,
and Mike's like,
"Have you heard
of this kid, Danny Way?"
I go, "Yeah, of course.
Yeah, he rides for Powell".
He's like,
"That kid's phenomenal.
It'd be great
if we had him".
I go, "You're not gonna
take him from Powell".
Powell's the number-one company
at the time.
This became
a challenge for Mike,
you know, just personally,
because Danny was on
and then he was off.
It took us a while.
All of a sudden a contest
comes up in Houston,
Shut Up & Skate,
big, big vert contest
on the metal ramp back there.
Danny was upset
because Powell
wouldn't pay
for him to go there.
And Mike said, "No problem.
I'm gonna have you go there,
but by the time you do,
you're riding for me".
For me to leave Powell
to join a start-up company
was a big deal, but Mike
was the reason why.
Mike just had a...
had a calmness about him,
had a rational disposition
that made Danny comfortable.
He couldn't do
what Danny did,
but he could cultivate
that out of Danny.
Okay, in first place,
you already know this guy.
His name is Danny Way,
got first place
in sponsored AM this morning.
It never occurred to me Danny
was gonna be a pro skater.
I just thought
it was kid's stuff.
I didn't really know
that what was going on
with Danny
was gonna go somewhere.
Mike took Danny
under his wing,
and Danny really liked
being associated with Mike
because he just had
that ability to get you
to want to be involved
in what he was doing
and believe in
what he was doing.
- I'll go like this.
- Wave like that.
- Cut.
- I gotta stop.
- I can't look at Danny...
- Get over something.
Start back.
Get back a little ways.
Get back a little ways.
Back right here.
There you go. Okay, now go in,
now go crazy.
Mike, Tony,
let me in!
Mike obviously understood the
situation with Danny's home life,
and it was an instant
connection between those two
and immediately took on a sort of
father-figure type relationship.
- Hey.
- Hey, Danny, what's up?
I want to get a part
in the video.
Hey, look, man,
video's already done.
It's all done. There's
no more room in it.
Maybe you can be
in the next one.
But if you need
a board or something,
- talk to Tony.
- Watch! Watch this.
Tim wasn't
around that much
after him
and Mary split up.
It was becoming
more difficult to figure out
a way to still be
part of their lives.
And him and Danny,
I think, grew apart.
You need a father,
and so if you don't have one
you're looking for one,
and if there's somebody
that can be that for you,
you grab on.
Mike reassured me
that Danny would go somewhere
in the world
with his skateboarding.
He didn't know
where or what,
but he said, "He's got
a lot of potential,
and I'd like
to see him use it".
Here comes Danny Way.
He is really hot.
This kid is 15 years old.
He's the youngest pro
on the tour.
He took a real bad spill
this morning.
He is doing a lot
of flashy tricks out there.
He hurt himself
in practice,
came down
on his tailbone very hard,
and yet he has managed
to pull himself together
and get a nice routine
going here. Oh, very nice!
He does
a 360 transitioning
from the big ramp
to the small ramp.
Very nicely done.
That'll be it
for Danny Way.
Pulling him
out of school,
it was the hardest thing
for me to do.
So, I had to take
a leap of faith.
I believed
in my son enough
to believe that his dream
would come true.
- First place, $2,500...
- Congratulations, Danny.
...goes to the youngest pro
on the circuit, Danny Way!
Danny, first of all, that was
an outstanding performance.
What do you think
did it for you today?
You had a lot
of competition.
Um...
basically, um...
Uhhhh...
Let's do it again,
take two.
Well, after a hard-fought
contest, this is our winner.
This is Danny Way, the
youngest pro on the tour.
Do you feel like you were hampered
by your injury at all today,
or did you skate
through the pain?
It was kind of hard in
practice, but in contest
I didn't think about
anything but staying on,
you know,
busting out.
Well, that was one heck
of a comeback.
Again, he hit
the floor.
I saw him a little earlier,
and he hit it hard.
He wasn't feeling
too good,
but he came back
and won the contest.
Once again, Danny Way
is our champion,
and that'll do it now
from Lansing, Michigan.
Quiksilver had
bought DC Shoes,
so we go for a meeting
with Bob McKnight,
the chairman
of Quiksilver.
And Bob writes a check
for the money we needed.
That was one
of those moments where
it finally strikes you
and was like, wait a second.
This really is going
to happen now.
This is a team effort,
so we brought
JT and Brian in
because they are
the experts in big structures.
With Danny, you're
dealing with history.
The stuff he does is always
so new and so creative,
like, there is
no norm to go from.
There is no fulcrum point
to start from.
It's like, okay, let's try it
with this and see what happens.
I have a lot to do
with these guys' careers,
making and breaking them.
I want to see Danny succeed,
that's what I'm there for.
I don't want to see
anybody get hurt.
The challenges
of building a structure
that has not
been built before was huge,
never mind
in a different country.
Probably get it
here somewhere.
Twenty-one meters.
Twenty-one meters converts
into 68 feet, 10 inches.
- What is it?
- Sixty-eight feet, 10 inches.
- Hello?
- Danny, JT.
JT,
how you doing, man?
- Good, how you doing?
- Good.
Hey, I got
a quick question for you.
I'm sitting here with Brian,
and the scaffolding's going up.
Everything's going good, but we're
actually pulling measurements
off of, like, distances
and stuff.
It looks like
right now, um,
the distance is
between 65 and 70-foot gap.
Is that
too gnarly or...?
- No.
- Okay.
Nothing's too gnarly.
It's no more
than 70.
Well, 70, that's getting up
there, I mean, yeah.
It changes the game
a little bit, which is good.
- I can do that.
- Okay.
I'm not worried
about it. Um...
Okay, I was worried about,
like we discussed earlier,
there was a good 55-foot gap
now that got changed.
I want you
to come out here
and know what you're
getting yourself into
so you're mentally
prepared for it.
No, I'm cool with it.
I'm cool.
- All right, Danny.
- All right, man.
Take care. Talk to you
in a couple of hours.
- Sounds good, JT.
- Okay, bye.
That same thing
that makes Danny tick
is what makes me tick.
I was just like,
"Yeah, but I've never
done this before".
We all set goals.
It's what makes
you go forward.
Goals can be dangerous.
I'd be coming home
from work
and he had
the little ninja motorcycles,
and I'd see "whooomp!"
right past me, and I'd go,
"God darn it,
there goes Danny!"
And I turn my car around,
try and chase him down
because he'd
already had it out
with the police
in Fallbrook several times.
One of my prominent memories
of Danny's early success
was when he started getting
a little bit of money.
He could start affording
his fantasies and things.
Quality American machine.
All of a sudden he started
buying all this stuff,
and he had, like,
motorcycles.
He'd ride them all over town,
no license, nothing.
It was just, like,
wild child.
- Going M.T?
- Yeah.
I'm gonna seriously pack
off the side, watch.
No, just go
straight up and down.
Oh, shit!
The house out in rainbow
that they lived in,
this was out in the middle
of nowhere up on a hill.
Most of the time we had
the house to ourselves.
Thought you were gonna
land on your back.
I remember pulling up
and bullet holes in the cars
and had the ramp there
and everything
and just skate house.
It was lawless.
Absolute lawlessness.
Danny didn't grow up the same
way a lot of other people did.
He dropped out of school
in ninth grade
and then he went into
this skateboard touring mode.
There he is!
And he started hanging out
with older kids right away,
so he really jumped
that period that's formative
in all of our lives
of going through high school
and finding out who we are
and developing ourselves.
He was just chasing
his passion at that point,
which anybody else
would do.
In the mid-'80s, there,
a lot of parks were going out.
I just remember seeing
Del Mar in chunks.
It was pretty devastating
on a lot of people.
People were
taking to the streets
because they had nowhere else to
go, and if you wanted to skate,
you just figured out how to use
the urban landscape,
learn how to use rails and
ledges and benches and stairs.
The city was
the skate park.
That didn't hurt
that bad.
We were
skating everything.
Calvary chapel was the hub.
Like, everybody went there.
Everybody would
meet there,
and then we'd all go
wherever we would go.
Danny grew up
skating Del Mar,
riding transitions...
Naturally talented
little kid.
Then this whole evolution
of skateboarding
in the late '80s
into '90s of street skating,
he adapted to that.
He could do anything
he wanted,
whether it be
in street or vert, anything.
And it looked right.
It looked good.
Danny
was doing some
of the heaviest street
skating at the time.
Make it, D. Yeah!
He was taking
those skills to the ramp
and opening a whole
new doorway to tricks.
Because he had
that background
of being able to ride
everything else.
It kind of led him
down a different path.
Yeah, Danny,
that was it!
We'd hear, like,
rumblings of, like,
"Oh, there's gonna be
this new super company
"and it's gonna
be called Plan B,
"and there's gonna be
all these crazy people
that are gonna skate
for it".
Danny Way,
Matt Hensley, Mike Carroll,
Sean Sheffey,
and Rick Howard. That's it.
- Cut and dry?
- Cut and dry, that's it.
It felt the same way
to me that I'm sure it felt
to the general public
when the USA finally decided
to put together
a dream team for basketball.
It floored everyone.
Plan B set the bar so high
as far as a group of guys
all in one place.
It set the standard.
And these guys were
creating something
that wasn't there before,
tricks that weren't
there before.
It was this
totally new thing.
And Mike Ternasky saw
what they could do,
and he brought
the most out of them.
When I had to film
something tough,
you'd want
Mike T. there.
You'd want
that reinforcement
while you were trying
whatever you were trying.
'Cause in those days,
you know, some of that stuff
you just didn't really know
if it was even possible.
- Yeah!
- Yeah, Matt!
He gave you something that
just blew up inside of you.
That just like, oh my gosh,
I can't sit still now.
I have to work for this.
Yes! Hey, Rodney.
Push.
That accountability,
like, we need that.
Mike saw different things
in me that I didn't see.
He was a big part of making me
a believer in myself.
You got it, dude.
Just go right now.
You're not too tired.
Do it again.
Talent only takes
you so far.
It's putting
your head down
and going that does
the rest of it.
Danny worked really hard.
It wasn't like it was
just easy for him.
We'd all slam
and get back up,
but most of us
would stop.
He never did.
He just kept pushing.
That was
real good.
If he says he's
gonna pull this off,
there's not a doubt
he's gonna do this.
If he didn't,
he would do it
until he either broke
his leg or something.
You know,
he would not stop.
Like Terminator.
He had a new peer group
that he needed respect from
and that he needed
to be accepted by,
so he was pushing the limits
of what he was capable of
and in doing so, you know,
shifting the paradigm.
- Whoa!
- Aah!
That's
good enough, dude.
Danny Way could have
done anything.
Anything.
Danny Way,
skater of the year,
selected by the readers
of Thrasher magazine.
During that era, he was
also a pro snowboarder,
a gnarly motocross dude,
and a super good surfer.
The higher your goal,
the more focused
and intense you get.
I don't know Danny's
whole process,
but I can imagine
he has to get himself
into a place
that's pretty intense.
And it's got
to make interaction
with other people
pretty hard.
And, uh, it's probably
not all healthy.
Danny was a teenager
with no parental supervision
with a peer group around him
that could perpetuate
his adolescence.
Got two
of these babies.
Mike wasn't
with Danny 24/7.
He knew there was
a lot of partying going on,
and had no problem
calling anyone out
for anything
at anytime,
so we just got better
at hiding it.
You know,
it's like any kid.
The mom's like,
"My son's an angel".
Meanwhile the kid goes out the
back door just ripping shit up.
We're seriously gonna
jack someone up.
That peer group really, I think,
pushed him in directions
that wasn't the best
or the healthiest for him.
Someone right now
is, like, walking
and they have no idea
what's gonna happen!
Like, they're
peacefully walking.
There was no parents
to stop anything,
so whatever stupid idea
that we came up with,
that's what we did.
Oh, my god,
you missed!
Smashing something
and running away
and getting
away from the police
is a great
bonding experience.
That's a great way
to build a friendship.
I didn't do shit!
- No?
- No, bitch!
The type of men
that are risk-takers,
they have
a certain recklessness.
I think that's a necessity
in what we do.
Ha ha!
Whoa!
If you can make it
through that reckless time
and maybe find
your direction
and kind of straighten
the car out, you survive it...
But in the beginning,
you have a lot of ammunition
and you're shooting
at every direction,
waiting to see
if it hits something.
I was downtown skating
and I looked across the street
and both my parents were, like,
standing looking at me.
I knew it, immediately,
when I looked up
and saw them the way
they were just looking
across the street at me.
I was like, "Oh, god,
what happened?"
Mike was really happy with the
way things were going, you know?
A lot of things
were lining up,
and his guys were
doing good in contests.
Colin and Danny were
in the plane with him.
He told them that he had done
so much of what he wanted to do.
You know, if he died
right now, he'd be happy.
Well, I heard he
was going into work.
I think Dave Andrews actually
witnessed this accident,
or he was actually
driving to work
and he saw that
there was an accident,
and had no idea that Mike was
actually in that accident.
Yeah, I mean, just,
I mean, devastating,
and, you know,
yeah, it was just devastating.
He was pulling out
off a stoplight,
and an older lady
ran the red light.
T-boned him.
When Mike passed away,
I was just like,
"Shit, man.
This sucks for Danny.
What is he gonna do now?"
It was just absolutely
tragic for him to lose Mike
because I think it was at such
a pivotal point in his life.
Short of our stepdad Tim,
he was the only other person
in Danny's life
that really grounded him.
He didn't have
that sounding board
that could really tell him
morally or ethically,
whatever, that what you're
doing is wrong or right.
I was a friend,
and there's no way
I could be that sort
of mentor to him.
I had no idea that
that was on the horizon.
I always felt, like,
this sense of security
with Mike
in the picture.
"If all else fails,
I can call Mike,"
and I was
completely lost.
We're hearing that there's
problems in the building,
but we're listening
for the key things:
It's finished
and it's safe.
At that level
of danger,
there's no room
for any error in the design.
- Thirty-two inches.
- Okay.
If it's off a half inch,
that's all the difference
in the world.
Hitting the quarterpipe
at 50 miles an hour
going into a ramp
three stories tall
and flying three stories
out of it,
that thing better
be perfection.
Skateboarders
are grown men
in T-shirts and shorts
and puffy shoes.
The Chinese guys don't like
being told
what to do by grown men
in kids' shorts.
We know how
to fix this.
It'll work if they will do
what we ask them to do.
I know, but...
He think you change
your mind many times...
We haven't changed shit!
Come over here and tell them
exactly what I said.
This is the plan,
the blueprint.
It's so hard to communicate
with the Chinese,
and the whole process
takes four or five times
as long
as it normally would.
And then the pride gets in the
way, and that's even harder.
Do you know
distance?
How much do you want
to move the scaffolding?
- Thirty.
- Thirty.
Eighty.
Eighty inches back.
A cultural barrier,
that's a big one.
If JT and Brian
can't do what they do,
Danny can't do
what he does.
It's definitely...
one of the most
challenging situations.
I've just never
failed before,
and I don't want
to fail now.
Danny got
injured surfing.
He got taken down
by a wave
and driven into the bottom
of the ocean headfirst.
It literally could
have killed him.
I remember him
coming home in a lot of pain
and describing the story,
and I was like,
"Yeah, whatever. Surfing".
And then he's like, "No, no, no.
It's really bad".
He was
very afraid then.
He didn't know if he was
ever gonna skateboard again.
He was
in a lot of pain,
and he went to try
to relieve some of the pain,
and a chiropractor
complicated things
and made things worse
instead of better.
There was some concerns
that he wasn't gonna
be 100% ever again.
I didn't have
any experience
with medical trainers.
Skateboarding was never
sophisticated in that way,
so when I finally got hurt
at the level where I needed,
like, real serious attention
from legitimate doctors,
it wasn't available.
I remember
visiting him,
and I had to lift him
out of the bathtub.
I was only there
for a week.
He dealt with so much
of this on his own,
like, literally at home
with a broken neck.
I'd watched him
for six months
going from doctor
to doctor.
He was all over the map
just trying to find
some sort of solution.
When Danny came to me,
he'd already had
the injury for six months.
Danny's neck
was like stone.
Any movement of his neck could
literally tear his spinal cord.
So, you know, I knew
I had my hands full,
and I knew that this was
a coin toss at very best.
That moment
in time was one
of the darkest moments
I've had in my whole life.
My motivation was out the door,
like, I just wanted to give up.
I said, "Danny, I'm gonna need
you to bring a skateboard here,
and I just need
to see you ride it".
He said, "Paul, I can't
ride a skateboard".
I said, "Danny,
look, I don't want
to delude you into thinking
you can be fixed up
because this is
a career-ending injury".
When he's not skating
or he's not skating well,
he himself doesn't have the same
confidence when he walks around.
At that time,
he was emotionally...
and confidence was a lot lower
than I'd seen him before that.
Danny was
literally sweating
when he took
the skateboard out.
You could see he was
paralyzed with fear.
Whenever you have
a traumatic injury
or life-threatening
situation,
it's time
for reflection.
Can you handle now
not being invincible?
Athletes
are used to winning
because they're exercising
their strengths.
So all of a sudden
when they are left
without their strength,
they have to explore
their weakness.
When you get hurt,
you kind of analyze yourself
and question
why you're doing it,
what you're doing it for,
will you be able to do it again,
and all those things
that dictate
whether you're just good
or you're great.
We have Danny Way
riding for Plan B.
He was told
he would never be able
to compete
as a skateboarder again.
Four months from the day
he walked into my office,
he won his first contest
back on a skateboard.
All right, Danny!
Let's hear it
for Danny Way!
It was really
quite a moment of joy
and celebration
for both of us,
because I saw
the warrior in there.
I saw everything
a great coach
or therapist hopes that
they can see in people
because it's really
the stuff of genius.
Danny was in and out.
You didn't see him all
the time,
but when you did, you're like,
"Whoa, it's Danny Way".
There was a lot
going on with him
at that point,
and a lot more drive.
The injury kind of
taught him
"I might not have another
chance to do this".
He's always
gonna rise up.
Man's broken his neck and was
out, never gonna skate again.
Well, that was just another
challenge for him.
Physically, mentally...
You just can't
break this dude.
I saw Danny, I hadn't
seen him forever,
and he was going so hard,
just attacking it.
The vert ramp
couldn't contain Danny.
The ramp was
too small for this dude.
If you built something bigger,
it could show his real ability.
Mike and I had
always talked about building
these monster oversized ramps
that'd break the world record.
But the ramp size
that I need to build
is gonna cost
too much money
and when would
that ever happen.
But Mike was always
like, "It'll happen.
One day we'll get it
figured out".
Once DC started,
it was all about the finances
to do something
like this,
and Ken and me realized
if you built something bigger,
it could showcase
Danny's ability way more.
For me,
Mike Ternasky
is probably
the biggest inspiration.
He was very good
at putting people
in situations
for them to succeed,
so I wanted to facilitate
ways for Danny
to explore his talents
and to expand
upon it.
Making Danny's vision
come to life wasn't easy.
Driving up
to this airfield,
I see, like,
what looks like a quarterpipe.
I'm looking,
and I was like, "Holy shit!
What is going to go down
on this right now?"
# Welcome to my world #
# Won't you come on in #
# Miracles, I guess #
# Still happen
now and then #
# Step into my heart #
# Leave your cares behind #
# Welcome to my world #
# Built with you in mind #
I remember
talking to him,
and he's like, "We're gonna
pull the helicopter in,
and I'm gonna jump
out of the helicopter".
I was like, "You're gonna jump out
of the helicopter into the ramp?"
I'm like, "Are you kidding?
Is he kidding?"
"Is he joking?"
"He's not joking".
Like, they would
let you do that?
They're gonna let you
get in the helicopter...
like, they can keep it up...
they're gonna let you do that?
He's like, "Yeah, we're
gonna do it right now".
"Okay," and then I thought,
"Are they messing with me?"
I end up getting in
with Danny.
It was pretty crazy
seeing him, like, filming him,
I'm like, "Holy shit,
this dude's jumping
out of a helicopter
into a ramp right now".
It went
from this incredible day
to "I'm about to watch
this insane disaster".
If it goes too early, you're
jumping 15 feet to coping.
If you jump just
a little bit off,
you're jumping 30 feet
to the flat ground.
I was, like,
so sketched out...
like, I was so off
in the corner
just, like, on each one,
just like, "Ooh!"
Him jumping out
of the helicopter
I thought was
the coolest thing ever.
I was just like,
"Oh, my god!"
It was
absolutely mind-blowing.
When he landed
into that thing,
it felt so
absolutely incredible.
Everybody was gonna
have to step up
after seeing that
in the magazine.
That's Danny.
He dreamed something up
that nobody else
on this planet would have,
and just figured out
how to make it reality.
Tim was amazed
that Danny
had even visioned
that ramp,
and that
it could be skated.
He was pretty proud.
Shortly after that,
Danny got married
and had a son, Ryden.
Danny was a father
similar to Tim.
It was like dj vu
all over again.
What Tim planted
in Danny
was the opportunity
to experience his capabilities.
That stayed with Danny.
He knew he could overcome
pretty much anything
that was put
in front of him.
Everybody
grows up different.
I think Danny
had a hard time,
and skateboarding
was his... his thing.
It was like going
to a doctor,
and the doctor says,
"Here are some pills. Take them".
Not with Danny.
"Look, you have some problems.
Here's a skateboard.
That's gonna make you okay".
Skateboarding brings
it all right to now.
There's a lot of times
I'm up there
and my head's
going crazy,
and every time I drop in,
it just dissolves all that.
Tim was out surfing
with some friends of his.
He was coming
back in on his board,
and he collapsed
in the beach.
He passed away
doing what he loves to do.
Danny felt a real loss,
and I think it brought back
feelings that Danny had
from other losses
in his life.
There's been a lot
of, like, trauma in my life,
and the only thing that's steered
me back on track is my board.
Some of us
use our pain
and our anger as a motive
to achieve things,
and that motive
is very, very powerful,
but it also is
a double-edged sword.
Skateboarders look
at the world differently,
but Danny's unique
because his gaze
is a lot wider
than most skateboarders'.
Leave it to Danny
to not be satisfied,
so I need something bigger,
I need something faster.
I need something crazier
because my head
is in a different place.
Whatever else is going on
in skateboarding,
that doesn't matter,
because this is what I need
to do with skateboarding.
I never imagined
anybody going that big.
That was the first time
anybody had even seen
anything like that.
That was a shock, I think, to
the entire skateboarding world.
He could very well
have built something
much, much smaller.
No one else would've
done it that way.
No one would've
convinced people
to put that much money
into building that,
and then somehow thought they
were gonna be able to do it.
Danny used
his entire skill set
to do the whole
megaramp movement.
His fearlessness,
his vertical skill set,
his street knowledge...
It's amazing.
It's a lifetime
of effort to do that.
He's the pioneer
of the gnarliest thing
there is to do
on a skateboard.
It goes beyond
skateboarding.
This is now
life and death stuntmanship,
True daredevil stuff.
You can die.
If you look
at the megaramp, I mean,
that's the result of Danny
being fed up
of having
to compete on vert
and saying, "You know what?
I'm better than this.
I'm gonna create something new
that's gonna jump everyone".
So, he created
his own event
on his battlefield,
you know,
like that he was
gonna excel at.
I really admired
and looked up to guys
like Danny Way,
guys that had
this completely other idea
that was, to most people,
crazy or insane,
but it was something
that worked in their head,
and they were able to start this whole
movement in this other direction.
They were able to start
their own sports.
The X-Games contest
is the gnarliest thing
I've ever seen
live skateboarding.
I felt like I was watching
gladiator or something.
Skateboarding
is just such a notch up
from a lot of sports
as far as how tough you have
to be to get that good.
I think that,
in a lot of ways,
it gives you strength
for the rest of your life.
In order
to achieve greatness,
you have to go through
a lot of pain.
You definitely
have setbacks,
but in order to achieve
that success,
you have to push through.
You're gonna have
to battle injury.
Oh, my gosh, Danny Way!
One to the world!
You kill me!
Yeah!
Why keep going? Is staying undefeated
really that important to you?
Naw, it's more... more my
passion for skateboarding
and part
of the challenge
sometimes is
battling the injuries
and, uh, you know,
it's always gratifying
to push the human,
you know, uh,
the human potential
as far as how much abuse
you can take
and come back from.
Danny! Whoo!
The very best guys
are the ones
that are willing
to push it past the limit
and take
those chances
to get
to that next level.
You have to believe
that you can do something
that nobody else
has done,
and somehow that concept
has to become reality.
From the very beginning,
it was totally
a different type
of experience, for sure.
It all happened
pretty quickly.
Danny was gonna
jump the Great Wall,
we were going
to shoot it.
I remember flying there
on the night of fourth of July
and taking off from LAX
and seeing all the fireworks.
There wasn't
a lot of information
about what
was gonna happen.
I didn't know anything about
the dimensions of the ramp.
We didn't know
what it was built on.
I hadn't seen photos.
We were all
really curious,
I think, to what exactly
it was gonna be like.
The week leading up to it,
it was pretty nerve-wracking.
These guys were just
working day and night,
so it was a definite rush
to make it happen.
The ramp was something
on such another level.
I would've never imagined
that it was gonna be
this 65-foot roll-in
built on top of a wall.
If something happened,
you'd just fall straight down.
This is
a structure of a size
that one man on the planet
maybe can do.
Now that's
a quarterpipe.
Now, that's what
we're talking about.
Oh, my god.
Jumping
the Great Wall is insane,
but then there's
a 32-foot tall quarterpipe
that he's gonna be charging
towards after jumping the wall,
and this thing's,
like, three stories tall!
He's gonna go 30...
he's gonna go
35 feet on this air!
He's gonna be
70 feet in the air.
Right here's
a good ten foot of air,
just rolling
down this thing.
Once you realize
that this is what you do
and this is who you are,
then you're like,
now I'm ready to really
put it on the line,
and now I need
to up the ante.
There's this quest
not so much for perfection,
but it's a quest
for significance or meaning
or that I contributed
or that I changed things
or that I mattered.
A guy like Danny,
he's only gonna participate
if he can offer something
that will change things.
To me, like,
that's honor.
I never would've thought
that I'd be here
to watch my friend
launching over the wall,
and it's hard
to even grasp, like,
the size of this
without being here.
This is bigger than the
megaramps... the super mega.
I remember going there
the first day and looking at it.
It was built
on scaffolding.
It was sketchy.
It took forever
to get up there.
It was definitely
not stable.
You could
feel it moving.
They would never let anyone
build something like that here.
You go up and you look down,
and it's just 100 feet down.
I was like, "Man, I hope
this is okay".
Like, "I really hope
this is all right".
This whole thing
is shaking around.
Don't move like that
and it won't shake.
But watch.
Literally, watch.
Feel the whole tower?
There is
an addiction to progression.
You get this incredible buzz
when you land something
the first time.
when you have
that mindset,
it doesn't matter
how successful you are.
You have to keep
challenging yourself,
you have to keep
doing it,
and at some point
that becomes a curse.
Danny didn't go
to the Great Wall of China
uncertain
that he could do it.
To the average person
it seems far-fetched,
but he knows
what he's doing.
He's been skating probably
just as long as I've been alive.
Of course
there's human limits,
but he understands
what he is
or isn't capable of.
It's a different breed
of human being.
It's Laird Hamilton,
it's Travis Pastrana,
it's Danny Way.
Everybody has
a self-preservation mechanism
in their mind
blocking you
from being fearless.
They don't have it.
I feel I've always been
very good at risk analysis.
Everyone says
you gotta be fearless
to do what we do,
but it's not true.
I think anyone fearless
gets hurt too quick
to ever be great
at anything.
they might get
a shade nervous,
but never once do they
ever cross their mind
What might
happen to them.
The only thing
they think about
is how they're
gonna make it.
Once you lose the fear of death,
you really learn how to live.
A lot of people
are just so paranoid
to get injured
or for failure
that they never let themselves
step up and live life.
Well, I think we should have
an extension up there.
I need...
I want the speed.
We could get
four feet taller on it.
Four foot taller. That thing
looks so gnarly already.
I'd rather have
that up there the first go
so I overshoot it
than undershoot it.
If I land on that deck
it's gonna be...
I'd rather land halfway down
than land on the deck.
Better to have too much speed
than not enough,
so at the last minute
we decided to go a little higher
and built a little
four-foot extension
so Danny can pump
off this thing
to get
a lot more speed.
At some point
you have to realize
how much do you
really love skating?
Are you willing to risk not
having it in your life anymore
because you want to do
that one last thing?
The day before
the official event,
Danny says,
"I wanna try a jump".
I didn't know if he
was supposed to practice
or not supposed
to practice.
We were pretty much
just keeping on eye on him
and seeing
what he was doing.
He wasn't supposed
to skate it,
so we were sitting
there all day,
and he's kind
of tinkering with the ramp
and finally
the Chinese officials
that were there to, like,
look at everything,
and these dudes
are pretty serious,
so we waited
until they bounced,
and he was like,
"All right, I'm going for it".
I just ran across
this bridge to shoot it.
I just hear someone saying,
"Hey, Danny's gonna take a run".
There was no siding,
no safety nets, nothing.
I'm like, "Oh, my god,
this can't be good".
Danny will admit
that he's scared.
He'll admit
that he's scared
standing on top
of the roll-in
at the megaramp
that he's scared of heights.
It's got
my heart moving.
Whatever he does
to channel that fear out
is something
that I don't think
most living people
ever learn to do.
You are rolling
down this massive structure
into the complete unknown.
It's hard to imagine
a lot of other things
that could be
any more terrifying.
When you finally do push off
and you start going down,
there's no going back.
Oh! Oh!
Hey!
Danny!
It was terrible.
Terrible.
I didn't know
if he had a broken neck
or if he was dead
or, you know,
he'd broken his leg
or what.
All you can do
is just sit there
and watch it and hope
that he's okay.
I'm speechless.
Speechless, man.
That was like
a car accident.
No skateboarder has
ever slammed like that.
God damn.
Dude.
I was like, "If this thing
is cancelled right now,
that's fine by me.
Danny's okay".
You need ice
on it immediately.
Ice right now, please,
and then we need this wrapped.
We need
more roll-in, man. Fuck!
His foot
was destroyed.
All I'm gonna do now is wrap
it so it doesn't swell, okay?
I'm over this stuff.
I just lost about
a year of my life
from standing
up there already.
We rush him to the hospital
and he's like,
"Ray, like, I just
don't wanna know.
I don't wanna know
if it's broken or not".
They are pissed.
We got a call basically
in the middle of the night
from the major sponsor
to say that
Danny isn't jumping
without major changes.
He came up short,
and we need to fix it.
We're gonna shorten
the gap by ten feet,
so that's what
our mission is now.
There's
a selfish aspect to putting
these really difficult goals
upon yourself
and putting yourself
at risk because
there are people
around you that love you
and they want
to see you survive.
They want to see
you grow old,
but you have
such tunnel vision
you don't hear
any of those voices
because you have convinced
yourself you're capable of it.
I think Danny wants
his boy to see him
be all the man he is,
and that means do what he does.
Not like, "Oh, now
that I have my son,
I'm not gonna ride
the giant ramp".
I don't think so.
I remember him
calling the room
the morning of the jump
and being like,
"Yeah," like,
kind of laughing.
On the phone, he was like, "I guess
it's a lot of pressure, huh?"
I was like,
"Yeah, do you think?"
'Cause he couldn't
move the foot.
It was his back foot,
and that's how you steer
your skateboard.
If he doesn't steer
his skateboard right,
he's going off the side
and he's not gonna make it.
The next day came,
and all of a sudden
it's not practice anymore.
It's this huge thing.
There's people
running everywhere.
There's crowds.
There's camera crews.
Hopefully this works.
He's gonna try it.
There's nothing
that's gonna stop him.
Danny has to get his mind
set before he does jump.
He's gotta be alone.
When he went in
to do his meditating thing,
I went in
to wish him luck,
and I said, "Hey, Danny,
Tim wants to do
the jump with you".
And he goes,
"What do you mean?"
And I go, "Put this
in your pocket
so your dad's with you
when you do the jump".
I would've never
have started skateboarding.
He never
in a million years
thought I would ever think
to bring some
of his dad's ashes to him
so Tim could be there
with him
and make him land.
He needed skating
to kind of get through
his hardships in life,
and once you get through
something like that
and it's like,
okay, now you're indebted.
He knows that skating
made him who he is.
Now he's giving everything
he can to skating.
We all went down
some dark roads,
but it made us stronger,
a lot stronger people.
There is a lot
of anticipation.
You can just hear it
in the crowd,
and I remember
there being a lot of waiting
because it was
a live television thing.
Twenty-five million people
are gonna see this.
Danny Way is
in a very tricky position.
He could encourage
a tremendous number of athletes
to try things
that are dangerous,
but he's also gotta honor
the pioneer in him
that wants to share
what is possible.
I cannot even imagine
what was going through his mind,
but he had put himself in a
situation where he had to do it.
He knew that,
and that's how he does it.
If you want
to live a life
where you're
breaking ground,
that's an uncomfortable
place to be.
It's full of uncertainty,
it's full of challenge,
it can be full
of disappointment,
and Danny's one of those people
that can live in that space.
You get yourself
all the way to the top
of the mountain,
and what's left but lightning?
And that, to me,
just says Danny.
What are you doing?
But what else
is left for you?
When he makes it,
you're emotionally involved.
Everyone there was.
Congratulations, Danny!
You're great!
I was so scared, I held
my breath all the way.
How do you feel?
I think I'm more scared
than you are, for sure.
So, are you satisfied
with this jump?
It felt great. I'm going to take another
jump just for personal satisfaction.
A lot of the people
that were doing that event
were just like,
"What's going on?
Why would he
do it again?"
But that's Danny.
Twenty-five million people
learned what makes Danny Way
Danny Way live
on Chinese television.
To do that
takes such a great dream
and a dreamer.
It's the greatest expression
of freedom
in a land
that is so controlled.
It makes you realize
anything's possible.
There are
only three people
with their name in gold
on the Great Wall,
and Danny's one of them.
And that, to me,
is so incredible.
My son has his name
on the Great Wall of China.
When he'd used to say crazy
things, I'd laugh and stuff.
I don't doubt anything
that he says
when it comes
to skateboarding anymore,
and I never will again.
Where we came from had everything
do with kind of who we are.
People didn't like
people from Vista.
We felt like we
had more to prove.
Danny's proved it.
He did it for himself.
He really did.
And now he always tries
to make the sport
better and better
and better
'cause he knows
what it did for him.
What all the reasons are,
he may not know every reason,
but for whatever the reasons
are that made him feel good,
he wants other children
to experience that love
and that great feeling
of just going out and skating.
I don't think
I've been satisfied ever.
There's always an urge
to do something
above and beyond
what you've done before.
The new territory,
you know,
the land of the unknown,
the experimenting
with things that
could seem impossible
and defining it's possible,
those are the things
that drive me.
At the end of the day,
that's all that drives me.
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# Oh, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
# Well, baby,
it's time to go #
# And I know,
I know, I know #
Published 06/01/2013