Tapout Founder "Mask" Killed in Auto Accident
Mask (real name Charles Lewis Jr.) died when his red Ferrari Modena crashed into a telephone pole. A female was ejected from the car and take to the Western Medical Center in Santa Ana. She remains in stable condition.
A second car, a white Porsche, is thought to have possibly been racing Lewis' car. The driver of that car has been arrested for gross vehicular manslaughter.
Mask was popularly known to the martial arts community as one of three characters who represented Tapout martial arts apparel. The other two characters are known as Punkass and Skyscrape. On their website at http://www.tapout.com they acknowledged Mask's death, saying:
DEAREST FRIENDS AND FAMILY
It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we must regretfully confirm the passing of our beloved friend, brother and co-founder Charles "Mask" Lewis following a car accident that occurred last night. We are currently in the process of setting up a memorial service in his honor and will release more details as they become available.
Many thanks to all for the outpouring of blessings and well-wishes during this incredibly difficult time.
The public is invited to leave a tribute message on the Tapout website.
Lewis, known as Mask, stood out in the martial arts world with his camouflage face paint, ever-present headgear, and distinct wardrobe. He did not always represent Tapout as the character "Mask", however.
Lewis founded Tapout in 1997 in San Bernardino County, California. At first, he and his friends sold T-shirts out of the trunk of his car at martial arts events. After passing out flyers at one event in 1999, he saw the flyers being casually thrown away and vowed that people would remember him from then on. That gave rise to his well-known camouflage look.
Lewis and his partners Punkass (Dan Caldwell) and Skyscrape are avid supporters of the martial arts and have supported individual martial artists, as was shown on the TV reality series TapouT on the Versus channel.
Sources:
http://mmajunkie.com/news/14232/tapouts-mask-killed-in-early-morning-auto-accident.mma
Published by Sandra Essary
Sandra is a featured travel contributor for Associated Content at Yahoo!. She has traveled extensively in the US, Europe, and the Caribbean. She has also camped for over 35 years throughout the US. Besi... View profile
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9 Comments
Post a CommentHow sad!
so sad, but great reporting!
What a sad story. Very well written though.
http://www.tapout.com/ now has memorial clips and blogs set up. A must-read if this issue has touched you at all.
Hard to write about something like that. Very well handled.
good coverage on sad topic
Sorry for the loss.
interesting article...
I am just stunned at this news. Like him or not, Mask did so much for MMA and martial artists. It's such a loss to the MMA community. Condolences to the TapouT crew.