Ray Macken Eye Witness
Photos by Trait
Front Feeble – Steelers Rail by Pete Dalmer
Ray Macken... what can I say. He’s a machine. Probably the most talented consistent skater I’ve witnessed with my own 2 eyes. You can literally make up tricks for him to do and he will do it within 3 tries... stairs, rails hammers, technical ledge tricks.. one of those pricks who can just do every trick known to man effortlessly... I was always bamboozled by how consistent he was like that. And Of course, The front feeble at Steelers rail was no exception. Man handled like a boss. In and out probably 2nd shot. Piece of piss. He’s one of a kind...
Pole Jam by Jae Overton
Ray Macken to me is what Johnathan Thurston is to unemployed alcoholic Queenslanders- an extremely gifted individual to boast of and take an unearned pride in solely because he grew up in the same area. After two to three beers at the pub I always find myself digging into my pocket, pulling out my phone and showing my friends Rays skating on Instagram. They started off gobsmacked, but now I think they’re just annoyed by how often I do it.
It’s unfortunate that skate magazine clichés like “trail of destruction” and “shut down” get thrown around so often because with Ray it’s actually true, few spots exist in Wollongong without some unbelievable Ray story to go with it. I honestly forgot about this pole jam until this pic resurfaced, not because there’s anything unremarkable about it, but because it’s literally one of the hundreds of times he’s nonchalantly “shut down” a spot at the drop of a hat just for fun.
Curved Rail 50-50 by Kane Horspool.
This photo was taken in the last couple of years, but I have no idea when. Dates are like dates to me. I don’t eat em.
The rail Ray is skating is attached to a pre-school and it was open for business this day, full of kids. Ray was filming clips with Adzy (Adam Harris) but I can’t remember who else was there. Knowing Ray, he probably already put down three tricks before we got to this spot. The rail is near a well-known bank spot, there’s also a kinda high regular rail there as well. But no one has even considered this curved blue behemoth a ‘spot’. But that’s the thing with Ray, he is only limited by his imagination. And he is quite the creative bugger so his limits are kinda endless.
To get onto this thing its basically hip high. And you have to carve into the take off. Plus, you gotta stand right next to the window of the pre-school with twenty little faces pressed against the other side of the glass. As soon as Ray had his first attempt all the little kiddies rushed to the windows to watch. We all looked at each other and figured he only had a couple of attempts before the teacher pulled the pin, called the cops and ended the session.
The little blighters were all banging on the window causing all kinds of fucking ruckus. And then the pre-school teachers came to check out what all the commotion was about. And to our utter amazement they actually encouraged the kids to cheer Ray on. We thought we were about to have the cops called on us but instead Ray got a pre-school cheer squad. With the post-toddler’s support Ray stood tall and rode away from this insanely challenging rail within ten shots.
Four tricks in a day by Kane Horspool.
Ray hit me up that he needed some photos for a board company. So, we linked up to hit some spots around Shellharbour. Between each spot Ray was changing his shirt to make each photo look different to the last. Not only did Ray shoot all these photos in one day, HE SHOT THEM ALL WITHIN THREE HOURS.
Spot one: Heelflip at the downhill kicker, 10:00am
Spot two: Hardflip at the Auto One gap, 11:15am
Spot three: Nosegrind on top of the world, 11:45pm
Spot four: Curb cut to curb cut ollie, 1:00pm
