Red Bull Pin Drop meets Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 in a real life format

A first of its kind, Red Bull Pin Drop paired pro skaters and gamers at the legendary Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville, Florida—a skatepark that also reappears as a level in the newly released and remastered Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and 4. The game characters were out in real life: Red Bull athletes Leticia Bufoni, Jamie Foy and Zion Wright, as well as legend Bam Margera who mixed it up with everyone who showed up and skated in the Florida heat and surprise rain. How it worked: The gamers had a two-minute jam on the Kona level in the game, then the skaters had a one-minute run in the real Kona park judged by the on-site judges, and that combined score is what went on the leaderboard. Committing to the occasion, our homies at The Boardr wore classic cop costumes like Officer Dick in the game.

Jamie Foy and Marlon Moreno were the ultimate winners at Red Bull Pin Drop, dominating the rails and ledges of the legendary Kona Skatepark. With powerful lines and technical precision, the duo stood out among a stacked field.

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Kona skatepark history

If you don’t know, Kona Skatepark is the world’s oldest surviving skatepark and has fittingly been in the Tony Hawk series for several games. “I’m not gonna lie,” said Florida native Jamie Foy, “as soon as I got the new game, the first place I played was Kona.” Kona’s weathered concrete got resurfaced and smoothed out for the Pin Drop comp, plus new permanent obstacles were added—Kona’s first ever concrete street obstacles!

“It’s so worth it to pay and go there,” said Foy. “It’s so historic for skateboarding. It’s like charging to go to a landmark when you’re doing tourist stuff. It makes sense.”

“They did such a good job with Kona,” mused Bam Mergera. “I played the Kona level today because we’re here and it’s identical to the game, to the point where the green grass sometimes turns brown—they even have that mastered in the game. They must have had a high-def scan or something. If you saw the contraption I was in when they rescanned me for the game, it was 167 cameras in a globe scanning me, so they have some high-tech Hollywood stuff going on right now.”

Bam’s personal history with the Kona Skatepark goes way back: “I skated here on the Tony Hawk Tour a long time ago. Danny Way Ollied this big gap that’s still called the Danny Way Gap. I was here two months ago skating and I knew that (the gap) off the vert ramp and into the bank, if Dalton Dern hadn’t done it already, he would do it today. He showed up with a hot pocket on his ankle, but still managed to do it anyway. He was like, ‘I can’t let this go, I have to get this done today.’ I don’t even know how people are skating in this heat to tell you the truth.”

Flordia skaters can handle the heat. Foy mentioned seeing Bam out and about in the park: “Everyone that I talked to, that was their big question, ‘Hey man, have you seen Bam around?’ He’s like a unicorn. I love that he still has a huge fan base and he’s doing good right now, he’s out there skating. He was out there sweating. That heat that day was insane.”

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Getting the call: Becoming a new skater in the game

“It was so surreal, all I could think of was, ‘No way!’ I was so hyped.” Foy’s manager told him Tony Hawk’s 3 and 4 were coming out and they wanted him in it. “They had re-released 1 and 2, they added Tyshawn (Jones) and Yuto (Horigome), and I didn’t know if they were going to do another package deal game with 3 and 4. I was so excited, but even more so to get into Activision and see how they do all the stuff.” Foy explained, “The process of making my character was pretty interesting—all the facial recognitions stuff—like hella cameras. Then I had to make noises for all kinds of things—my laugh, my excitement levels, my pain levels—and now it’s pretty much a dream come true.”

So what was it like to get the final product and play himself in a Tony Hawk game for the first time? “I thought it was crazy,” said Foy. “Nowadays video games are so much more clear compared to when I was a kid. It looks pretty much just like me. The character might be a little taller in the game, but hey, I’m gonna take that (laughs).”

Of course we had to know what Foy’s Special Trick is, the answer might surprise you. “It’s called the Nova Grind I think,” says Foy. “It looks like a frontside noseslide shove-it to front crook, it looks pretty cool. Then I have another one, The Fandangle, that (Eric) Koston used to have in the game. It’s a one-foot crooked grind, it’s pretty funny. Honestly, playing my character and doing a special trick and hearing the ta-tong! you know the special trick noise? Ah, it’s so sick.”

And wouldn’t Foy’s character have extremely high front crook pinching ability? Foy let us know, “It’s not really front crook or pinching abilities, but he’s got balance—a really high balance meter which is sick, you can get hella high scores. Also speed, my guy is hauling ass which is pretty sick.” We’re definitely taking Foy’s character for a spin when we try the new games.

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The impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 within pro skaters’ careers

Bam, who first appeared in the third edition of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 2001 explained, “They did such a good job that it really put pro skaters on the map, because even if you’re not a die-hard skateboarder, a lot of people bought that game and found out about me through it. When I do Comic Con signings, which is pretty much every week, there’re always a handful of Tony Hawk games that I’m signing as they tell me I was the only character that they picked in that game, and they’re really glad I’m back in it.

As a young girl growing up on Brazil, Leticia Bufoni actually played the game before she started skating: “Before I started skating, I was playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with my brother. I never thought I would skate one day, because back then, it was a ‘boy-thing.’ A few months after playing the game, I started skating and I got addicted to it. A year after I started skating, I started competing, and I just kept going. When I started skating, I didn’t know the names of the tricks, so I would play the game and learn them. For example, I learned to do heelflips (in real life) first and I thought it was a kickflip. I went on the game and when I did a kickflip, I was like, wait a minute, I thought that was a heelflip. So the game helped me learned the names of the tricks.”

The video games also opened Bufon’s eyes to a world of female skaters as well: “I got to see a lot of pro skaters, like Elissa Steamer, for the first time. I saw her in the game, then later I got an all-girls skate video DVD. It was a big part of my childhood and it’s amazing to be in the game now.” Bufoni first appeared in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 in 2015.

Foy explains the impact the game had on him: “For me, it opened my mind that anything is possible—yeah, it’s a video game, but if you imagine it and can see it, even in a video game, then it makes it more of a thing you can obtain in real life. I would think about a trick, and then see it in the video game, and that would make it possible in my mind.” Pretty insane to think that some of Jamie’s mind-blowing handrail combos may have been dreamt up while playing Tony Hawk’s video game. “It also showed me that the world is your oyster. Those levels in the video game—you can skate everything, you’re not just stuck on some ramps. It opened my eyes when I was a kid, if I was bored or if it was raining or if I was hurt, I was always able to skate virtually. It kept my mind wondering and kept the creative side kicked up.”

Put it on your bucket list to swing by the historic Kona skatepark next time you’re near Jacksonville, Florida. It’s full recharged, and if it’s good enough for Foy, Wright, Bam and Bufoni, you’ll surely have a blast and get your money’s worth. See how it stacks up to its video game version yourself!