Summit County locals and Adaptive Action Sports athletes Mike Minor and Kiana Clay will compete in the debut adaptive skateboard events on Sunday, May 23, at Dew Tour in Des Moines, Iowa.

Sunday’s Dew Tour contests include men’s street and park and women’s adaptive skate finals from 8:15 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time through noon Mountain Daylight Time. The Summit duo will be joined by another para snowboarder and skater in U.S. Paralympian Evan Strong.

Speaking Saturday, May 22, in between practice sessions, Minor — an X Games medalist in adaptive skate — said the first time para skate exhibition is a great example of mainstream representation for the sport. That’s especially the case as the Dew Tour is a qualifying event for hundreds of the world’s best skateboarders ahead of the 2022 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in Japan. Adaptive skateboarding is not a part of the 2022 Paralympic slate.

Beyond that, 2018 Pyeongchang gold and silver para snowboard medalist Minor said the new Lauridsen Skatepark is massive and state of the art for the park and street competitions he’ll partake in.

“This park is really crazy, the biggest in the country,” Minor said. “The Dew Tour added a few modifications to the park, but the street section is great and the bowl section is awesome, big and gnarly. They put some of those features in there that are not normally here. There’a a Toyota under a plexiglass wall as an added feature in the bowl section. We’ve been delayed on and off practicing with the rain this week so that’s been rough, but we finally got on the street course last night practicing for the first time for street.”

Minor said the Dew Tour street course consists of giant handrails, manual pads and enough hips and banks for the avid skateboarder to transition happily.

Minor said he’s hoping to ride like he always does on Sunday — as fast and big as he can.

“Have fun and put on the best show,” he said. “That’s pretty much what skateboarding is all about.”

Minor and Clay’s participation in Sunday’s competition comes in the wake of Toyota announcing for the first time ever it will sponsor all athletes named to the U.S. Paralympic Team for the Tokyo Games and the 2022 Winter Olympic Games next February in Beijing, China — a competition where Clay and Minor are both expected to represent the Stars and Stripes.

“This changes things for a lot of people,” Minor said. “We’re doing things anyway to make the para games as an athlete, so for them to give more incentives is just great. It’s going to help me a lot with a lot of things. This is guaranteed to help a lot of athletes. It’s just the start of something really good, honestly.”