Hayden Ball / Backside

I asked myself, why would we go to Dallas kinker on a sunny Sunday afternoon? What’s the use of skating it? Over the years it has been destroyed and put to rest by people like Haffey, Shima, Livingston, Schrijn, and Guerrero. Why not go to something new?

Once we got there I understood why. The outside rail had been out of commission for about 8–10 years because there was a post bolted onto it. People have managed to bring tools and unbolt it over the years, including myself, but then it was welded in place. But now, by some rollerblading miracle, it had been removed.

This rail is a mission. It’s a fun mission, but make no mistake — this thing can take more than a few attempts to accomplish. My legs were tired from the day before, so I setup my camera on a tripod in the parking lot and starting snapping a few shots. At first I was just trying to decide if it would be worth setting up a few flashes; maybe hide them on the stairs. Then I decided that instead of using flashes and trying to hide them I would try shutter priority mode just to get some test shots and move on from there. I had just changed my settings when I see Fester Wheels rider Hayden Ball flying down the rail backside, just passing through the kink. Luckily, my shot was all set up on my tripod so I just pressed the button and got a nice sequence of him finishing the last half of the rail. This is the first picture within that sequence, and it was shot at 1/1000 on a Nikon D7000 with a tripod and my lens at 55mm, F/10, ISO 200.