Last night I dug out a bunch of old photos from Impact Skatepark in Rhode Island to scan for a more elaborate post down the road. Located in East Providence, Impact was Kevin Robinson’s skatepark in the late 90s. I spent a ton of time there before I moved to California. It was a dark, dungeon-like place for photos, but the tricky lighting actually made it a great place to learn. If you could get a decent photo at Impact, you could do so just about anywhere. The park saved us east-coaster from the winter, and saw riders come in from all over. Derrick Girard, who later became known as “the Maine-iac” and joined the illustrious FBM team, was a regular, despite living three hours away in Maine. He’d show up on a race rame (I believe that’s a Reynolds Racing frame in the photo) and destroy the box jump and wooden doubles (which you can see in the background).

I’ve got some scanning to do, but I’ll be posting some more photos from Impact in the near future, including some shots of Ryan “Biz” Jordan, Jerry Bagley, Keith McElhinney, and Kevin Robinson.