He’s so inclined

VISTA, Calif. -- It’s an ordinary afternoon at the Burnquist residence, nestled in the hills of this North San Diego County neighborhood.

Friends come and go. A worker clears a field to make room for a horse that Bob Burnquist bought for his 7-year-old daughter, Lotus. She picks strawberries in the garden while he slips into his “suit of armor.”

Moments later, while Lotus and others watch, Burnquist careens down a steep and narrow wood ramp and flings himself high and far across the rugged landscape, then goes back for more.

And with each precarious flight, followed by an equally precarious landing and yet another airborne sojourn, it becomes increasingly clear that while this may be an ordinary afternoon, Burnquist is no ordinary man.

And his is no ordinary backyard.

Burnquist, 30, is a professional skateboarder who has made a career out of taking risks, and last fall he became the proud owner of the world’s only permanent mega-ramp.

It’s a ridiculously scary-looking contraption on which elite skateboarders hurl themselves across a 55- or 70-foot gap, land going downhill at about 35 mph and attempt difficult tricks after soaring anew 20-plus feet above a 28-foot quarterpipe wall.

The X Games, which begin a four-day run Thursday at Staples Center and the Home Depot Center, have for three years used a similar model for big-air competitions.

Danny Way, who designed and pioneered the apparatus and helped finance Burnquist’s $300,000 backyard version, won the gold medal all three years.

Burnquist, however, will enter Thursday’s competition as the powerful favorite, in part because Way recently had knee surgery and will not compete, but also because Burnquist has put in the most practice since the ramp was completed last fall.

“The bar has definitely been raised again, and it’s going to keep getting raised,” says Way, who will be sidelined for six months. “It’s still in the infancy stages of what can be done, but it’s on the right track.”

Recently in Burnquist’s backyard, Way performed the same fully extended “rocket” back flip that helped win him the gold medal in last year’s X Games -- but he landed it in a switched stance, or with his unnatural foot forward.

The same day, Burnquist performed a switch ollie 540 over the gap, which essentially is one-and-a-half spins without grabs. He somehow used the relative wind and gravity to keep the skateboard attached to his feet.

“We never thought it was possible,” says Burnquist, who lives with Jen O’Brien, a vert-ramp specialist who also will compete at the X Games.

Theirs is a modest home on 12 acres in an upscale San Marcos Mountains neighborhood, 10 miles east of Oceanside and flanked to the west by farmland. But there is nothing modest about their yard.

Out front are a series of wooden pools for vert skating. Performing tricks above vert-ramp walls has been Burnquist’s passion since he was a wheezing asthmatic growing up in smoggy Sao Paolo, Brazil.

He turned pro at 14 and moved to the U.S. at 17, when Way and Tony Hawk were already stars, and began a meteoric rise.

Creativity and a persistence became his trademarks. A spiritualistic outlook and passion for organic living and healthy environment further set him apart.

“Bob is more grounded than most X Games athletes,” says Chris Stiepock, general manager of the annual action sports showcase, which is in its 13th year. “He’s comfortable with his lifestyle and surrounds himself with really good people who believe in him.”

Burnquist has a long list of noteworthy athletic accomplishments, among them 12 X Games medals, four of them gold.

He’s a pilot and sky-diver, and in March 2006 he performed a 50-50 rail-grind on an arched apparatus extending over the Grand Canyon. After sliding off the rail, he tracked like a missile away from the canyon wall, then opened his parachute and floated 1,600 feet to Earth.

He has wanted a mega-ramp since he skated Way’s creation -- since dismantled -- five years ago at a remote desert outpost called Point X, east of Temecula.

He purchased a 7.6-acre parcel adjacent to his home property and envisioned the ramp blending with the slope of the hillside. He held “a neighbor day” to assure them that the massive structure would not obscure views, which it does not.

Trespassing has always been an issue, even though he allows the neighborhood kids to skate his vert ramps. But the mega-ramp carries far heavier potential consequences. Visitors, even friends, must sign a waiver before going near it.

“I chase people out all the time,” says Tim Tice, a caretaker whose duties include chauffeuring Burnquist, in a 4-WD Yamaha Rhino, to the top of the roll-in ramp after each of his jumps.

Only a select group of skateboarders and BMX riders are qualified to ride the mega-ramp.

Burnquist once made 89 jumps in a day. He practices two days a week when he’s not traveling and averages 50 jumps each session.

The sessions are preceded by 15 minutes of yoga and fitting into a padded neoprene suit. He then applies more pads and a helmet because violent falls are inevitable.

Mentally, 100% focus is required of skaters as they negotiate the 60-foot roll-in ramp and approach the kicker, because if they don’t clear the gap, they slam into a solid wall of unpadded plywood just beneath the down-sloped landing area.

“That’s where I ran out of funding,” Burnquist says with a smile, adding that if somebody were to hit the wall, there’s a net to catch his or her limp body.

Dozens of skateboarders and BMX riders -- BMX big-air makes its debut as a medal sport at this year’s X Games -- have asked to ride the ramp. Burnquist accommodates those he believes possess adequate skills.

The only serious injury so far, he says, was a broken leg -- requiring screws and a plate -- suffered by street-skater Pat Duffy, who drifted too far inward above the quarterpipe wall and landed flat beyond the transition.

“A lot of those guys expressed interest,” Burnquist says. “But after Pat got hurt there were not as many calls from street skaters.”

On this afternoon, Burnquist is entertaining Edgar Vovo, a friend and fellow vert skater from Brazil. He promises Vovo he’ll buy him an iPhone if he can stick the initial landing and advance up the quarterpipe.

It’s Vovo’s first time on the mega-ramp and the view from the top is daunting. The roll-in ramp looks as narrow as a Popsicle stick. Across the gap is that plywood wall, which he is not eager to splotch with his blood.

Burnquist has already completed several routines, each with varying trickery, making the process look easy.

But fear floods Vovo’s mind, as it floods the mind of every first-timer, and he ditches his board soon after dropping in and slides to the bottom of the roll-in ramp. He clears the gap on his second, but falls upon landing and slides to the base of the quarterpipe. Again and again he tries, with the same result.

O’Brien is away visiting a friend. Lotus, Way and his young son Tavin are alongside the landing area watching intently. But for the children it’s mostly because after each run they get to stand in the back of the Rhino and bounce with the skateboarders back up the dirt hill.

It’s hardly extraordinary, but it sure is fun.

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pete.thomas@latimes.com