Since skateboarding made its debut on the Olympic Program in the Tokyo Games last summer, Hawk notes, there has been even more interest—especially internationally—in community skatepark projects. The Skate Punk is a skate board which has a rider on it. The Skate Punk has been re-released as the Skate Brigade, which features a different board and a different figure. Since 2020, the casting uses the name Skate Grom.

Removing accessibility barriers is a major step toward making skateboarding more diverse and developing the next generation of talent, but those skaters who choose to go the contest route also need competitions willing to pay them equitably. The thing that’s changed since the Olympic debut is the inclusivity factor is very much equal in terms of race, gender, age; if you have a skateboard, you’re welcome into the fold,” Hawk said. “It’s something that has been a long time coming, something I’ve always believed it in but has been hard to present because skating was so male dominated through the decades. Once it exploded on TV and people saw there were these 14-year-old girls and people from all countries that are killing it, and a camaraderie that you don’t see in other sports, that shined through.” Skating was considered an outcast, misfit activity when I was a kid and even through the ’90s and early 2000s. It was misunderstood, and skateparks were not embraced. The irony is the kids were labeled outlaws because they didn’t have a place to go. We were able to change that narrative a bit with public skateparks.” As part of its collaboration with Hawk, Hot Wheels will also make a donation to his foundation, The Skatepark Project (previously Tony Hawk Foundation). Since it was established in 2002, the foundation has funded 652 skatepark projects across all 50 states. The Skatepark Project has also provided guidance and advocacy training to thousands of skatepark projects worldwide.Hot Wheels Skate is a series of miniature skateboards ( fingerboards) and playsets introduced in 2022. The line was created as a collaboration with renowned vert and street skateboarder Tony Hawk, aiming to bring a new toy to market and help expand access to community skateparks as part of Hawk's The Skatepark Project.

I’m thankful that Hot Wheels chose to support our foundation The Skatepark Project. Mostly it’s a validation that a big company like that believes in our work and believes in skateparks as something that is good for youth,” Hawk said. Vert skating, especially, faces a dearth of paid contest opportunities—only park and street skating were included in the Olympics. X Games, which wrapped last week, features a vert competition and debuted a new “megapark” discipline this summer, but only men were able to compete in the vert events. The removable set of 'sneakers' holds fingers in place when mastering the techniques on the boards, especially helpful for groms who are just learning how to flip and stunt with their tiny fingers. Vert Alert will return on August 26-27 this year, once again held at the Utah State Fairpark in Salt Lake City.It was the same week HBO dropped the trailer for the documentary about Hawk’s life, Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off. Hawk was set to present at the Oscars alongside fellow action sports icons Shaun White and Kelly Slater, and he wasn’t about to let the injury stop him.