Half-baked.

ONE FOR THE TEAM

WHEN I GOT my first tattoo, Fred Corbin told me the inked rule-of-thumb: You'll get at least three; no less, and probably more. In the first two-day blitz of KOTR, we scrambled through New York 'til we stumbled upon Vinny Stigma's (of Agnostic Front) New York Hardcore Tattoos. Taking one for the team, I went with the Bam-O-Gram while Beagle got the Skate And Destroy--his first tat ever. With mist in his eyes, the pain eventually subsided, and the thrill of changing his body took over. Before Beagle was through he was talking about his next tat. After we were done, we walked over to Max Fish (notorious "skar," or "skate bar") for a few drinks. NeckFace started spouting off to Ellington about his friend who does homemade tats. A few calls later and Erik had NeckFace drawing on his ribs while some guy in our hotel room was putting together a ballpoint pen connected to a battery and a guitar string. Erik never knew what hit him.

BAKER NEW YORK CITY CHALLENGE

Get a trick down the D7 blocks that Dompierre 360 flipped

Get a photo on Patrick O'Dell's Epiclylaterd.com

Harold Tribute: Go to a toke-out Chinese restaurant before 3 pm and order fried chicken to go. Wrap the chicken in napkins, and put it in your pocket. That night go to Max Fish, order a drink, and toast Harold while eating your chicken

SPAWNICIDE

DUSTIN DOLLIN has perfected the art of torturing anyone surrounding him. I love the guy, but I'm glad he was in the other van. At the last minute, Dustin came along on the trip to help with the editing, motivating, and skating. All in all, DD is nothing but a good time, but when he gets going, step aside. An undercover anal-retentive about order and cleanliness, Dustin kept us on track when it came to the book and what we needed to do. What he didn't realize was that not everyone has as much psycho energy as he does, so he'd get pissed at us every time we didn't follow his directions.

HAIR DAMAGE

EVER SEEN a dog shaved to the bone? Looks like a mix between a stretched out rat with elephantitis and a chupacabra. Andrew keeps his hair pretty short anyway, but the shaved eyebrows made him look pale and pasty. But Beagle got the full treatment from the Dollin Salon. Kinda funny the worst hair challenge was called the Duffel's Do--and regardless of whether he won it or not (he did), Beagle's headphone hair-don't, eventually dyed red and black, took the cake.

NECKFACE

WHO AND WHAT is a NeckFace? Remember the cover of Thrasher in July 2005? The drawing of the demon dude grinding a coffin? Well that's Neck. No, literally. He looks like his drawings--all mangled, satanic, and distorted. Neck is a mischievous humanoid who roams the streets of NYC, writing random crap on walls and selling paintings for astronomical prices to unsuspecting low-brow art snobs. You gotta love it. But being a skater/artist has its perks, and one of 'em was coming on half the trip with Baker to add a bit mayhem to the mix. Crank calls, a hankering for destruction, skatepark tag-age, fullpipe score keeper, slingshot assassin, Dustin's Jager accomplice, spot reconnoisseur ... Square-faced and sucker-free were Neck's MO's.

BAKER MILWAUUKEE, WI CHALLENGES

Frontside grind over the bench at the Cream City skatepark's China Banks replica while eating an ice cream cone 

Everyone do a trick over a ease of Milwaukee Best

Build a Gonz loop board (complete boards connected end to end in a large circle) and drop in on tire mini at Cream City

RADIATOR MAINTENANCE 101

AT ONE POINT on the trip the boys found a pole jam that needed some help in the angulation department. They took one of the vans and decided using the front bumper was the best way to bend it over more. WRONG!! You always use the back bumper so you don't smash in the radiator in. Duh! Needless to say, the radiator was jacked for the rest of the trip and the AC gave out immediately. While the CEO's took the AC savvy van the rest of the zoots were stuck in the hot-boxed confines of the stoner mobile.

VAN SABOTAGE

Challenge: Get your sticker on the inside rearview mirror of another team's van (mirror-stickered team loses 50 points)

This challenge put a new spin on the 2006 KOTR quest. We were tracking people down, lookin' for saboteurs. It was time to cash in on the legion of kids who would do anything for product. We'd hear where Toy Machine was and try to get kids to bum rush their van with a sticker barrage unprecedented on this planet. But it worked both ways--we were also in a stew of paranoia, hoping they weren't coming for us. We ripped our rearview mirrors out of the vans, Jamie Thomas slept in his, Darkstar had motion sensors surrounding their perimeters, and Toy Machine went South African and installed pepper sprayers around their ride. After a tip that Zero was in San Francisco, a guy named Cutter traced their van to the Travelodge and got Al Qaida on it. Turns out it was the Mystery van (they weren't even on KOTR). Props go out to Griffin from Toy Machine for snipering Darkstar's ride.

BAKER DENVER, CO CHALLENGES

Backside 180 ollie up the Euro gap at b Columbine Park

Get the Frederickson twins to each perform a double kickflip at the same time while dressed identically

Get a line at the Blue Ledge hip involving the entire team

ENDER-ENDER

WRITING SUCKS. This is skating, so who cares about some schmuck pontificating on the esoteric value of van life in the open country, the ins and outs of truck stop food, how rad we are when we get drunk and party, the chicks we bang, the cool people we meet, how sick so and so's triple flip was, and the whatnot? King of the Road is about going and destroying and lurking and getting gnar. Baker blitzkrieg to the fullest. Reynolds, Ellington, Greco, Herman, Romero, Beagle (filmer), John "Flip" Colbert, Dawes, Dollin, Szafranski, and Matt Parra, from New York City to Los Angeles. Hit some other cities in between, smashed the van, suffered it out, and skated. Three-sixty pole jams, 20-stair bombs, rails, manuals, all-night drives, anxiety attacks, and Milwaukee ripped! So what! We tried to fill the KOTR book, but it's a lot easier said than done. We did our best and that's all that mattered. Leo killed it. Drew killed it, for sure. Greco slaughtered it. Mule Man buried it. Flip charged it. Beagle murdered it. Dustin drank it, and Herman cruised it. 'Til next year, bitches.

BAKER SACRAMENTO, CA CHALLENGES

Hey Jah, Let's Party! Build a beer bong and got Matt Rodriguez or John Cardiel to beer bong a beer

Steal a T-shirt from Flat Spot skateshop

Kickflip the triple set