Leigh is writing this series of articles on Season 3 of Thrasher’s King of The Road

for Viceland TV.

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King of the Road (KOTR) picks up in Episode 3 with the Real, Foundation, and Element skate teams still in Sacramento, CA for Day 3 of the contest. You don’t need to know the names of the tricks or even a whole lot about skateboarding to enjoy KOTR. The intensity that these guys have busting their asses to land tricks for points along with completing the other challenges, and silliness in between is reason enough to follow this extraordinary contest.

That’s pure inspiration. I’ve never seen someone fall so hard and get up and go to the top and do it again.
--Evan Smith, Element (on teammate Nyjah Huston)

Things got rolling right away with a Rise and Shine Challenge: Eat the Pickled Pig’s Feet before anyone gets in the van, eats breakfast, or does anything. Evan Smith (Element), Zion Wright (Real),and Corey Glick (Foundation) took on the challenge in their own ways with mixed results.

Evan is exploring the limits of consciousness. He’s definitely on his own trip and it’s amazing to watch.-- Michael Burnett, co-creator, KOTR

Smith enjoyed some mushroom experimentation and racked up a ridiculous amount of points for Element with tricks like a Hippie Jump over the hood of a parked car and a dazzling Big heel to no comply down a set of stairs. At the skate spot, Madars Apse, Tyler Peterson and Nyjah Huston all delivered tricks for points. Nyjah, who had been trying to pace himself this KOTR outing, took a nasty landing coming down the big rail, bruising up his posterior while narrowly missing the family jewels. So much for pacing yourself.

Definitely we’re the underdog, just as far as other teams. They’re living good off of skating and we’re all just trying to get a presence in skating and show people: ‘Look, the Foundation team is...they’re good!’ -- Don Luong, videographer, Foundation

Foundation enjoyed a day of street skating as well. At a tight spot with a ramp up to a rail, Dakota Servold did a front blunt transfer up the rail and over it. Pure magic; he landed so lightly on his board with relaxed and smooth style. Servold also jumped over the rail on his skateboard, landing on top of another board, riding away and points earned. Corey Glick answered that with a huge frontside heelflip up the same ramp and rail.

The Real team found a big stair set and started racking up tricks and points. Jack Olson put an entire container of Vaseline in his hair for points then proceeded to land a ton of rail tricks. Kyle Walker did a board slide down the rail with hands on hips (not easy,I assure you) and also banged out a frontside flip down a double set of stairs. Robbie Brockel got in with impressive tricks as well, including a 360 double kickflip and Chima Ferguson’s biggie heel no comply was stunning.

Foundation wanted to do the challenge where a parent of a team member rides in the team van for 8 hours, so Nick Merlino called his dad with hilarious results. Then they called his dad back just to piss him off. Merlino decided to get his lip pierced for points, but since he never bothered to check the actual book listing all of the challenges, his teammates duped him into getting his belly button pierced. At a later time, Merlino will no doubt discover he got his belly button pierced for no points.

Back by popular demand: the handcuff challenge! -- Michael Burnett, co-creator, KOTR

Team managers gathered their skaters around after receiving a mailing envelope to reveal that the contents were not one but two pairs of handcuffs. Three skaters on each team were handcuffed together for 24 hours and in the course of their forced togetherness, had to land tricks like they were a human charm bracelet. The trios landed staple gun on a 5 foot quarter pipe and a manual challenge then headed to a bowling alley to try to bowl strikes in unison. Team Real got up on a roof so Brockel could take a dump into a chimney. The Foundation team got crazy landing tricks naked and covered in shaving cream; even team videographer Don Luong was a team player and shed clothing and dignity to film the crew sporting only shaving cream.

A new episode airs Tuesday on Viceland at 9:00pm ET

Full episodes are also available at Viceland or on Viceland’s YouTube channel.