SKATE JAM ATTRACTS CHEERS.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

ENCINO - Steve Perez didn't even wait for the official to signal the start of his run around Pedlow Skate Park's forbidding concrete and metal course.

``I wasn't nervous,'' said the 11-year-old skater dressed in the obligatory baggy shorts and black T-shirt with logo. ``I knew I had a chance to win it after the kids before me messed up, and I knew I could do the tricks.''

Perez and his take-no-prisoners attitude did indeed win the 11 and Under division of the first Skate Jam and Competition held at Pedlow park - and cheers and whistles from the crowd transfixed by the skaters' deft board work.

From kick flips, ollies, board slides, stalls, primo stalls, pop shove-its, and manuals, the action rolled for five hours straight.

``I'm just going to go out there and let it all hang out,'' said Brian Parks, 18. ``That's why this is so much fun.''

The competition drew about 100 skaters on a muggy, cloudy Saturday and doubled as a fund-raiser for the park, the first city-owned skate park to open in the Valley.

Park officials are looking to add pools or ramps to the course, replace the portable toilets with permanent bathrooms and add lighting to the park, said Marcus Rentie, a recreation assistant.

Michael Fries, 17, earned some of the loudest cheers of the afternoon.

With a small jump, he lifted himself and his board into the air and onto a metal guard rail, sliding down sideways and landing on the ground, on top of his skateboard, his arms spread with panache.

``That was so great!'' Fries said, stripping off his helmet and pads, which are required gear at the park. ``I've been trying forever to land the kick flip, and to do it in competition is wicked awesome.''

But for self-described ``skater mom'' Patti Smith, who was there to cheer on her 16-year-old son, Travis, all the falls and spills and near-misses make for some cringe-inducing moments.

``I've gotten used to it,'' Smith said, in between videotaping her son's runs. ``And now, it is so much fun for me to watch. There's nothing like watching him do a trick he's been practicing for weeks.''

Skateboarders, after all, perfect the art of getting back up each time they fall off their boards to unforgiving concrete or asphalt.

``That's what it's all about, man,'' said 13-year-old Mitchell Davies. ``You just gotta get back on that board.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) Above, 14-year-old Gabriel Chacon of Encino wears the required safety helmet and knee pads while he competes in a Division 2 event at a fund-raiser Saturday in Encino's Pedlow Skate Park. At left, skateboarders take turns jumping to clear an obstacle made of stacked skateboards. The first Skate Jam and Competition at Pedlow drew approximately 100 skateboarders to the park in the 1730 block of Victory Boulevard.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer