Way Leaps Over the Rest to Collect Big-Air Prize

Travis Pastrana may have emerged as the bright-eyed hero of X Games 12, but Danny Way is the event’s undisputed ironman.

On Friday night, Pastrana brought the Staples Center crowd to its feet and earned an enormous cheer when the motocross rider became the first athlete to spin consecutive back flips in a competition.

But it was Way who performed, in Sunday’s mega ramp big-air competition, a single back flip with a full leg extension while traveling 70 feet through the air -- on a skateboard.

If that weren’t enough, upon touching down at 35 mph, Way soared 23 feet above a quarterpipe wall and performed what is called a Christ Air, with his skateboard held with one of his outstretched arms, then placed beneath his feet before landing.

The rest of the competition was for silver and bronze. Way took gold for the third consecutive year in an event that is only 3 years old but fast becoming a marquee discipline on par with Moto X freestyle, which is ruled by Pastrana.

The immensely popular Pastrana, 22, labels Way a legend and inspiration.

“He does things that no living human being would ever conceive possible,” Pastrana said. “He thinks them up and then does them first, on his own.”

One thing Way conceived was the mega ramp, a frightening contraption with roll-in ramps of 80 and 60 feet and gaps of 70 and 50 feet, leading to a downslope and a 28-foot quarterpipe wall.

Way won the first two big-air competitions with 360s while flying across the 70-foot gap. Those moves are now standard among the dozen or so skateboarders who ride the mega ramp. Last summer, Way took the ramp on the road and used it to leap the Great Wall of China.

More recently, he traveled to Mexico City and became the first to do the “rocket-air” back flip, which he has since named the El Camino -- “Because it’s Spanish for ‘the Way,’ ” said the 32-year-old skateboarder from Encinitas.

Bob Burnquist, who won the bronze Sunday, said Way has been inspiring others for more than a decade, and that Way’s Mexico back flip led Burnquist to become the first to do a front flip.

“Having Danny around has been very, very good for us all,” Burnquist said. “He’s been on the cutting edge since he began skateboarding.”

Remarkably, Way keeps going despite signs from his body that it might be time to slow down. He won the gold Sunday minus an anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. It was removed recently, and Way has trouble making abrupt lateral movements.

Among previous injuries was a broken neck suffered while surfing. But he’s still surfing, and skating, and dreaming up new ways to keep skateboarding exciting, urged all the while by an imaginary little guy on his shoulder, telling him to keep pushing the envelope.

What makes all this even more extraordinary is that Way, of all people, is afraid of heights. “I don’t prefer being at high altitude,” he confessed. “I’m not going to freak out or anything, but there’s no question I get butterflies when I’m on the edges of the top of the tower.

“The only thing that helps me keep my sanity -- it’s like my security blanket -- is my skateboard, because I know I can get down quick.”