We are proud to announce our newest team rider ,Packy Fancher. Enjoy the interview and hopefully you get a chance to see this guy absolutely destroy the Blacksburg Skatepark park in the near future.
GH: What’s up Packy? Everyone here at the Greenhouse is super pumped to have you on
the team! What you got going on right now?
Packy: Yeah man, thanks for having me! Well I got one more semester up at Tech, I’m
looking for work in a horrible recession, and it’s the coldest winter in twenty
five years. Things are good.
GH: Where is home for you and how did you end up in Blacksburg ?
Packy: All over Virginia. I was born the DC area and raised in a town called Smithfield
about forty five minutes from Virginia Beach. I spent some time in community
college and transferred to Tech in 2006.
GH: Where did skateboarding all start for you?
Packy: The driveway. Then the street. Then in a cul-de-sac across the neighborhood
where a kid had access to A LOT of power tools. It was a new development so
there was plenty of spare lumber lying around. We built tons of stuff.
GH: Favorite place you have ever skated?
Packy: Hmm… Probably the Chuckatuck ramp. It was about 15 minutes from my house
surrounded by cornfields. The shallow-end was six-foot with seven-foot
extensions and the deep end was triangular; nine foot deep with a foot of vert.
One of the corners was a 16ft cradle which is where I learned to go upside down.
Plus there was ring game…
GH: Care to elaborate on the ring game?
Packy: Well sometimes bars have a string hanging from the ceiling with a 3in diameter
ring at the bottom of it. Then there’s a hook on one of the walls nearby and
people try to swing the ring onto the hook. It’s pretty time consuming. After
you hook it once you can generally get it a little easier. These guys however
created an 18-hook ring game course under the deck of the ramp. The 18th hook
was an oyster chucker located on the outside edge of the deck so you had to
swing at a blind target. I probably finished the game twice. Those guys had it
dialed though.
GH: Favorite person/people to skate with?
Packy: I have a lot of homies in Portland. The Chuckatuck guys taught me everything I
know along with Sergie Ventura. All the vert guys from Trashmore. Ron O’neill
and his kids. Then theres Wes Meadows, Rob Resh, Furnee, PRBL, and all those
NOVA guys. Plus all the locals in Blacksburg: Caio, my roommate Jake, Kevin
Canto, ect, ect.
GH: Nicknames?
PAcky: Packtard, Cracky. Porkard Finchie. the Portland guys always tell me to pack a
lunch, or pack a bag, or pack whatever during contests. Few people call me the
Pack Artist. I have no idea what that’s all about though.
GH: Goals for 2010?
Packy: Back smith through a bowl corner would be nice. Fingerflip to tail. Frontside
tailgrabs. Backside tailslides on anything and everything. Make a video part.
Brew my own beer. Get some smaller wheels. Graduate – I’m only two years
behind. Get a job. Find a place to live. Skate Durham and Raleigh. Keep the
woman happy.
GH: Who influenced you in your skating growing up?
Packy: Portsmouth Pool Service – the guys who built the Chuckatuck bowl. Some of the
notables were Trey Winslow, Johnny Fresh, and Mark Gwaltney. Mark Gwaltney
probably had the most influence. They taught me everything from how to properly
annihilate a pool to never using condoms… ever. All the VB vert guys too. Sergie
taught me all about vert skating. In high school I only watched skate videos
from the 80s so Lance Mountain, Neil Blender and dudes like that.
GH: Favorite video part?
Packy: Right now its Lance Mountain’s part in Extremely Sorry. Partially because my
only motivation for a real job is to put a pool in my backyard.
GH: Music?
Packy: Ghostface, Blockhead, Talking Heads, Beatles, Hall & Oates (not kidding), MJ,
Prince, MF Doom, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, J Dilla, The Police, Tribe Called
Quest, Q-Tip solo stuff, Biggie, ELO, Iggy Pop, pretty much anything that’s
just a little weird. Not too weird though, that’s annoying.
GH: Favorite Beer?
Packy: Definitely the Dogfish Head 90min IPA. $10 for a 4-pack but I mean you get what
you pay for.
GH: Would you rather…. Work as an armpit sniffer for a deodorant testing company -OR- as a hair stylist
for dead people in a mortuary?
Packy: Probably sniff for Secret cause it’s chick deodorant.
GH: Tell us a little bit about Pro tec pool party?
Packy: Mostly party with a little bit of pool. They got this brew pub called Alcatraz
about 50yrds away so once you get outta the chaos you can get hammered. Steve
van Dorn throws out drink tickets like it’s his job, because it is.
In 2008, I was put up in a hotel about one mile from the park for five days. So
basically I got up, ate, skated, chilled, ate, chilled, skated, chilled,
chilled, and then skated, then I drank. It’s a pretty amazing experience.
Things really got gnarly when Bucky Lasek was the first skater in my heat along
with six other top notch guys. I didn’t make the cut and I went to Alcatraz. I
got to rub elbows with the best pool and vert skaters in the world for a week
so it was pretty freaking sick. You do don’t know how much you suck at skating
until you drop in next to Bob, Bucky, Omar and Rune.
GH: So you will be graduating From VA tech with a history Degree in the spring? Any
big plans or trips you got lined up to celebrate?
Packy: Living in debt sucks so I probably won’t do anything exciting until August.
Hopefully I’ll get a credit card by then and take a week-long trip to Cali or
something thus digging myself deeper into debt.
GH: Contests you plan on attending this year?
Packy: Well I kinda retired from pro bowl contests after a pre-teen girls’ make-up
company set up a tent at Trifecta last summer. It was pretty depressing. I’ve
heard rumors of a BBQ skate jam in the works somewhere in the New River Valley
this Spring… I’ll be there.
GH: So…word on the street is you like to party….any funny stories you would like to
share?
Packy: I ate something that upset my stomach and gave me some interesting side effects
with an X-Games champ, a stripper, and a very famous pretty boy’s little
brother… We called it “The Circle.” I have no idea what I ate though, I swear.
GH: Any stupid human tricks?
Packy: The loop and caveman nose manuals.
GH: Really man..the loop? No kidding? How did all that go down?
Packy: When I was 19 I took a road trip with some friends across country. We got to
this town called Reedsport on the coast of Oregon and they had this funnel loop
thing I had heard about. So the locals convinced me if I film the loop I get
$500 from the skate park builders. It took about six tries and after that it
was pretty easy. There was no money however…
Caveman nose manuals came about because I suck at tech tricks.
GH: Anyone you would like to thank?
Packy: Yeah, there’s a bunch!
