PETER HEWITT

INTERVIEW BY JESSE MARTINEZ

PHOTOS BY JOE HAMMEKE

There are a lot of guys out there that call themselves a pro, but how can you call yourself a pro when you can't skate everything like Peter Hewitt? In my 34 years of skateboarding, I've only seen a handful of guys who can skate it all and Peter Hewitt is definitely one of them.

What made you start skating?
I started skating because of these older guys that lived across the street who were skating.

You didn't know them well?
I got to know them, and then they started letting me borrow their skateboards.

Do you know any of their names?
Eric Luno was one of them, and his brother Jay.

How old were you then?
I was like nine or eight years old.

You were just a kid. What year was that?
It was probably '81 or '80.

Where were they skating?
They were skating Del Mar and Oasis under the bridge.

Did you live near there?
Yeah. I was kind of in between both of them.

You were around nine when you started skating?
I just pushed around on my knees for the first year.

That's how I started, then I ran over my finger and I stood up the next day.
Yeah I had too many scabs on my chin. My mom was like, 'I will show you how to do this.' She rode the thing down the street and I was like, 'Alright, I have to stand up now.'

At what point did you get interested in contests?
I freaked on contests, always. I never liked them.

Nerve rattling?
It was so nerve rattling, I just couldn't handle it.

Some people like them and some people don't.
Yeah, I just couldn't concentrate. I'd be looking around at what was going on other places.

You got noticed by just skating local spots and other places?
Yeah, I was just traveling around and skating.

Who was your first sponsor?
Z-Roller.

Hot.
Yeah. George would come down and skate Fred's ramp.

How old were you?
I was around fourteen.

That's when things started going for you?
Yeah, Del Mar closed and we had a vert ramp down in Imperial Beach. We would skate that all of the time.

That wasn't Jason Jessee's ramp was it?
No, that was Fred's ramp. He lives down in Imperial Beach.

You skate a lot of vert, too.
Not as much as I used to but, I get on it as much as I can.

Skating vert makes the street stuff easier.
When you skate vert and then skate a pool, you remember what you were doing on vert and you try and do it in the pool.

Yeah, it transfers everywhere. Do you think some skateboarders cheat themselves by not skating everything and just being focused on one thing?
Yeah. If they have it available, then I would say, use it, but a lot of kids don't have like a skatepark or a vert ramp or they haven't searched out a pool. I think they would ride it if they had it.

Well, in our area. We didn't have any vert ramps but we made a point to search the pools.
Or try to make a vert ramp in the Canyon or something.

Yeah, exactly. Do you think that skaters cheat themselves by not being all around skaters?
Yeah, I just don't think that they are aware of it, quite yet, but I think they are staring to become aware of it with all of these parks popping up everywhere.

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