LASSO THE RAMP
She learned to twirl a lasso before she learned to ollie. Now she's inventing grabs nobody has names for yet — and she's doing it in hand-stitched boots.
There's a specific sound Marisol Vega's skateboard makes when she drops into a halfpipe. It's not the usual clatter and roll — it's lower, more deliberate, like a thunderclap arriving late to the party. The pros in attendance at the Santa Fe Bowl Sessions 2024 noticed immediately.
"That's the sound of someone who knows exactly what they're doing," said veteran skater and two-time WST champion Hector "Loco" Fuentes. "She was born for this."
Marisol grew up on her uncle's ranch outside Española, New Mexico, where skating the driveway meant navigating chicken wire, roosters, and the occasional confused goat. She started on a Walmart board she bought with money earned mucking stalls. The terrain made her technical. The isolation made her creative.
The grab she's become known for — which the internet has variously dubbed the "Whip Crack," the "Lasso Flip," and simply "that thing Marisol does" — involves a mid-air transition between a melon grab and a nose grab while simultaneously rotating the board 180 degrees with her back foot. She makes it look inevitable.
"It came from trying to imitate a lasso motion while I was in the air," she says, laughing. "I know that sounds crazy. It is crazy. But it works."