Words by Ryan Clements
Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek
Anthony Mosley, where ya' been? Anyone know the story? He was ripping all weekend. Nollie frontside boardslide
Every time I think of Gugu's name, I want to stick my thumb in my mouth like a baby. He goes fast as you can see on this frontside 180 switch crook where the takeoff
and landing are about 10 feet apart
I first got to meet Helder Lima in a
Holland hotbox at AmsterDamn Am two years ago. He kills it and is now starting to travel the world with us. He's in California until November filming with
Volcom and is also entering Damn Am in three weeks. Bring this backside 360 with you, Helder
That's Manny Santiago's move - big spin boardslide. I bet that would look real good to fakie. Let's see it, Manny
Every time I see a switch back lip on a bump to flat bar, all I can think of is Bam. Anthony Mosley makes it look good
Kevin Romar - nollie backside 360
I am the biggest fan of this dude. Dylan Rieder - ollie impossible manual
Last trick Bill Weiss had
on the site was a naked 540. He put clothes on for this early grab down the 11
Brandon Westgate has the snaps and the hotfoot. Ollie up, king sized flip out
Louis Tolentino is the future world record high ollie holder. We're planning an event for that right now. More on that later. Not only does Louis have cat legs,
he's a manny champ, too. Frontside 180 fakie manual
Kurtis Colamonico - switch flip
Curren Caples probably has an easier time taking a 360 flip down an 11 than on flat with those baby legs
At the end of Brandon Westgate's back smith up the hubba, you can see the super snaps of Andrew Langi on a backside flip
Andrew Langi came out of nowhere this year, killing it and looking good even in shorts. He looks just as good on tranny as he does on this backside flip, too
Damn, Brandon. That's a damn good looking 360 flip
Figgy could have been the Goofy Footed MVP, except when he was trying tricks before his time that Chris Cole did in the Game of SKATE. Switch Figgy Figgy
Sean Malto - frontside nosegrind. He can get away with shorts
Dylan Rieder - that's how a boneless should look
Caswell Berry smoked a lot of cigs and also this double set. 360 flip into the bank
Darrell Stanton - switch pop shuv
Caswell Berry - stalefish disaster
Tyler Hendley - kickflip over the rail. Maybe it's time for some pants
Caswell Berry - wow, pop out of a frontside nosegrind on a hubba?
Who dat? Well, it's Julian Christianson. Check out this switch varial heel down the 11. Looks pretty good until you see him do a backside 180 bennihanna a minute
later. Only Jake Duncombe can pull that off
Julian won the Hometown Heroes Contest so he was allowed to move on to the GvR Contest. He's got the bolts on all his tricks like this nollie backside heelflip.
Bennie's on the bolts, too
Caswell Berry - frontside flip
When Chris Cole did this frontside 180 frontside grab up the giant step-up in the Game of SKATE, Figgy and Tyler Hendley did rock paper scissors to see who would
have to try it and look like a fool. Figgy tried it. Fool he was. Stinkbug, too
Tyler Hendley did this hardflip in during the Game of SKATE
Andrew Langi's answer to Tyler Hendley's hardflip in the Game of SKATE
Brandon Westgate was stomping this thing both ways. That's a serious gap to manual right there
I like Billy Marks' All-American spend it all before you die attitude towards money. We're both helping to make the credit crisis worse and enjoying every minute.
We also both have funny looking kickflips. We should be BFF's. This is a nollie inward heel
Alright, I'm fanning out a bit too much on Brandon Westgate. One more photo. Look at that flick and catch - Chuck Norris can't even kick like that
Taylor Smith is in the growth spurt club. That's a kickflip back lip
Here's a small sample of dudes who aren't usually on this side of the lens
The only time I ever see Rick McCrank in person is at GvR
Figgy kills it, but a key weakness was exposed by Chris Cole when he was forced to try a frontside grab frontside 180 up the step-up which made him look like he just
got a skateboard for Christmas yesterday
Here's a photo of the crowd for you to analyze. What do you spy?
Kurtis Colamonico can get photo incentive without a shirt
There was a Bad Religion show on Saturday night. There was tons of free beer but the lines were super long, even if you had the gangster wristband. Mark Vallero
solved that problem by stealing a vodka bottle. You don't know who Mark is yet, but you might soon if he can keep from abusing the substances. Good luck with that.
He rips
Adam Dyet got the first Skatepark of Tampa Party Team tat. We have to get tats now? Damn
Matt Milligan is trying to vote me off the Skatepark of Tampa Party Team. We're going to have to play a Game of DRINK, just like a Game of SKATE. I will take him
out
I spent like 30-minutes in the beer line staring at a big ass dread forming in Figgy's hair. Is he going to be the next white dude to rock the dreads?
Taylor's trying to get on the Skatepark of Tampa Party Team based on one night of getting loose. Pffff, you don't go pro with one kickflip, son. It takes some
payment of dues. See you at the next one, Taylor
We've all gome some embarassing things about our past. These two freestylers here used to wear kneepads when skating flat with socks pulled all the way up tucked
into the pads
Filmer Sara worked all weekend and will have some footage coming in soon. Bobby Worrest won't be in any of it because he didn't skate
Somehow Peter Raffin ended up in our room at the end of the night. Thanks for the entertaining stories, Peter. I like when people don't hold back on their industry
stories. Good night everyone. Thanks etnies for everything this weekend
Clem's Playin' Hooky Photos:
The Chief is into old cars as well as motorcycles. This is a '69 Camaro, 100% completely restored with all OG parts. He takes it out about once a week
Gearing up to get down
This is Drew. He's the building operations manager at Black Box and doesn't have a car. The bike he's sitting on right here is his only form of transportation.
One day on the way to work he clipped the end of a car and went flying over the handlebars. Amazingly, he was fine (but a bit shaken up) and there was only $130
worth of damage to the bike
I think that I got slightly artsy with this one. JT is smirking and that's Chad in the mirror
I'm not sure what town we were going through right here, but it sure was nice. Riding and taking photos at the same time is a bit of a challenge
Jamie grabbed the camera to take a shot of me and he caught me waving to another biker going the other way. Check out those ape hangers. I had never ridden with
them for a long period of time before, but once you get used to them they're pretty comfy
The Chief on a fs feeble to fakie over the gap, just like he did at Washington St. in Ride The Sky. Jamie's got this move on lock
Jamie offered me a pair of shoes, but I had my eye on the Crocs and they weren't my size
L to R - Jamie, Jesse Fritsch, Mike Burnett, Mike Sinclair, and Brian Howard. This group of guys can tell some damn funny stories. I also learned a lot of inside
info that I'll never be able to repeat, but let me tell you that there are a lot of crazy people involved in skateboarding
Day 2 – Playin’ Hooky
I’ve seen enough Contests in the past few years to know that I don’t necessarily have to watch every single bit of the event to write a story, so when I got an offer
to go ride motorcycles with Jamie Thomas, I took him up on his hospitality. We met at his place at about 1pm and hit the road immediately, with the threat of rain
looming overhead. Joining us was Chad and Drew from Black Box, as well.
So we start the ride and it’s like 0 to 100mph in no time. We’re going through winding roads, up and down hills, at a minimum of 30mph over the speed limit at all
times. Then when we got onto the interstate it was 100mph and weaving in and out of cars. In CA it’s legal to “split lanes.” That means that you can literally
pass between two cars on a motorcycle. After that experience, which I was totally down for of course, I think that Black Box needs to do their own Wild Ride. Or
maybe they just do it every weekend…
We grabbed some lunch midway through, rode down the coast, and then hit the Black Box TF for a quick session. We met some old friends for dinner after that and
called it a night. Thanks for the fun day, Chief. I finally made it back to Lake Forest, but missed the Bad Religion show and party. Oops. I’ll check out the
entire GvR Finals though…
Day 3 – Goofy vs. Regular
If you don’t know what GvR is all about, then let me give you the quick break down: This is the 5th Annual. Who knows if it will continue from here, but the bottom
line is that Regular has won twice and Goofy has won twice. That means this could be the eternal tie-breaker on which stance is truly dominant. Funny to think
about, right? Does anyone really care? I’ll tell you what…a lot of people that are hanging around Sole Technology (parent company of eS, etnies, and Emerica) care,
and overall, it’s really an entertaining concept.
So back to the Contest…it’s basically a team vs. team challenge, with the teams being those that are regular-stance and those that are goofy-stance. Think about
your favorite pros and top ams and which way they skate and you can figure out the teams. Pretty simple, right? Sometimes the most simplistic ideas are the best,
which brings the eS Game of SKATE to mind. Did I happen to mention that it’s the “etnies” GvR? Yet another good Sole Tech idea.
To add a little more excitement, there is a betting pool where you can actually bet on Regular or Goofy with legit odds and the whole deal, like it’s Vegas or
something. The last two years I’ve put $100 on Regular and lost. This time I put $100 on Regular again, but keep reading to see how I did…
You know that it pretty much never rains in Southern California, but of course it rained on Saturday during the Qualifiers. That meant that the rest of the
Qualifiers got handled before the Semi-Finals on Sunday afternoon. But I happened to miss those too because I had cool-guy industry conversations going on
constantly. However, I did make it into etnies Skatepark to watch the best of the best, the Semis and Finals. Now we’re talkin’…
The skaters were broken down into five-man heats according to their stance. There would be a heat of Regular, then a heat of Goofy, then back to the Regs…and you
get the picture. In the Semis they had four heats total, two for each stance. Then they took the top dudes out of the Semis and put them in with the “chosen ones”
from each stance…they guys that were picked ahead of time to represent either Goofy or Regular in the Finals.
With my $100 on Regular I felt pretty confident because I had Malto, Reynolds, Cole, Sheckler, and McCrank. And the top five for the Goofs just didn’t seem to match
up with Rogers, Hendley, Caswell, Olson, and Darrell representing. No offense to those dudes because they’re all rad skateboarders, but I just thought that the
Regular line-up was better. But then I got a bit nervous when I heard that both Andrew Reynolds and Ryan Sheckler were “sick.” I don’t know about that because I
saw Shecks in the crowd, but hey, I don’t blame those dudes because I wouldn’t want to be skating contests constantly either if I was them, so Regular got ams Chris
Troy and Julian Christianson (who?) in their places.
Okay, so we get through four more heats of Finals, two for each stance, and the skating was literally off the hook. The little crew I was hanging thought it was
going to Regular, then Goofy, then Regs again…the skating was that close that we couldn’t predict the final result. So then guess what happened…the final scores
were within 25 points and the two teams had to play each other in a Game of SKATE on the chosen obstacle, which happened to be the big double-set with a step-up and
good-sized hubbas on each side.
It was Chris Cole and Andrew Langi repping Regs and Tyler Hendley and Justin Figueroa for the Goofs. This was literally the best Game of SKATE that I’ve ever seen.
Goofy came up and got a couple of letters on Regular, but then Cole got strategic. The best part was Chris Cole getting Figgy on old school tricks like the fs 180
air and nosegrab judo up the step-up. As gnarly as Figgy is, his attempts were literally pathetic…it was obvious that he had never even thought of trying those
tricks before. Goofy had a chance to make a comeback, but it didn’t happen because Cole can do every single trick in the world. Cole ended it with a switch fs flip
and bs 360 ollie into the step-up. Tyler and Figgy gave solid tries respectively, but just couldn’t hang...
Overall Winner – Regular
Regular Winners
1st - Chris Cole - $16,000 – at the risk of kissing way too much Chris Cole ass, I’m saying that he is currently the best skateboarder alive. If he puts his
mind to it, I don’t think that there is anything he can’t do. That’s why he was the Regular MVP, too
2nd - Andrew Langi - $10,000 – what is this kid going to do with 10 G’s? I don’t know what to say and I’ve said this before I guess, but Langi is going to be a
force to be reckoned with in the very near future. He’s skating on a pro level
3rd - Julian Christianson - $6,000 – who are you? Where did you come from? With the exception of the bs 180 bennihana, this kid had quite a bag of tricks.
Someone will be picking him up shortly
4th - Carlos DeAndrade - $3,500 – where you been, Son? Carlos still has it, with HUGE fs ollies on the qp and bs flips over the whole couch
5th - Chris Troy - $3,500 – I think that Troy was a bit nervous that he got picked for the Final squad, but he held his own with proper 360 flips down the big
stairs and fs boardslides 270 out on the rails
7th - Fabrizio Santos - $1,000 – new nickname courtesy of Duncan: Fabreezy
8th - Rick McCrank - $2,000 – note: If you were picked to be in the Finals, you got an extra G. That’s why McCrank in 8th has $2,000 and 7th has $1,000
13th - Chris Mendes - $1,000 – some people say he’s weird
14th - Adam Dyet - $1,000 – claimed to get ripped off again
15th - Danny Rosario - $1,000 – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost before each trick
Goofy Winners
1st - Tyler Hendley - $2,000 – they call him “White Chocolate.” Damn that’s a funny nickname, but don’t let it fool you because Tyler knows how to throw the f*#k down when the time comes. He did 360 flips and nollie biggies higher than anyone there and was damn close to leading the Goofs to victory and himself to MVP
2nd - Jereme Rogers - $2,000 – the best was Jereme claiming that “Cole cheated” because he did some old school tricks to take the Game of SKATE. Sounds like
someone needs to learn ollie grabs
3rd - Justin Figueroa - $1,000 – Figgy is already a top am and is on his way to being a top pro in the next couple of years. He’s got a HUGE bag of tricks, but
now we just need him to learn how to grab his board…ha
4th - Rodolfo Gugu Ramos - $1,000 – someone said to me, “It’s amazing how much control he has over those 180 fs ollies to switch krooks.” It really is…he locks them
in so good and solid it’s like a regular krooked grind
5th - Chad Bartie - $1,000 – ATV Aussie ripper ain’t scared to jump down big stuff. Even though he was 10 years older than the rest of the Goofy skaters, he
still did a bluntslide down the big hubba and a heelflip down the big stairs
6th - Caswell Berry - $2,000 – stoked to see him in a contest
And I won the betting pool, too. Not sure how much I came up because Rob and I had to book it out of there to make our flight at LAX, so it’s just money in the
bank. It was a long trip home sitting in the middle from LA to Atlanta, but Rob took the middle for me from ATL to home…
Thanks very much to our friends at Sole Tech who always take such good care of us. From the hotel accommodations to the free food, party, and entertainment the
entire time…thanks for having us.
Let me leave you with a quote:
“Swift blew it by putting in Taylor Smith over Felipe Gustavo.” – Chris Ortiz
Looks like the Kiddie Course isn't going to be done until tomorrow. Here's some photos from our first session on the main course and some random bar antics at Skateboard Industry Night in St. Pete: A New Course and a New Bar Scene.
You can get a fisheye's view of the completed street course on the SPoT Facebook Page. If you're a fan of SPoT on Facebook, you already know that we sometimes do special sales and give out coupon codes there. Maybe there might be a special just for Facebook fans next week? Who knows? Maybe. The kiddie course isn't done yet. Photos from that coming up in a bit.
On the Win an All Expense Paid Trip to Tampa survey thing, I should have added, "Stay away from the Skatpeark of Tampa Party Team" as one of the options to prevent your skateboard career from derailing. When you come to Tampa, it's easy to get spinning in the party tornado, especially when 200 of your homies are all in the Ybor hotels or the Ho Jo. If the sauce is not your scene or you're trying not to make it your scene, a nice hotel for a decent price just a few minutes up the highway from SPoT is Days Inn. If you're just looking for a lower price room, a cab ride from there to the tornado in Ybor is probably about $15 or so. There's also another Days Inn on Dale Mabry that's across the street from Mons Venus. They don't serve booze there, just boobies. Boobies never hurt anyone's career. Anyway, you have some time left to enter the Tampa trip giveaway which comes with a hotel room and $500 spending cash, among other things. Since you're not skating, we will see you at all the parties that you get passes to.
I went out to shoot photos of the Kiddie Course construction and spotted Kris Markovich hanging out. Here's what things look like as of now. Gotta go, I have a conference call with 25 people from Fuel TV. 25 people??? Yep, mindblowing. It's about the live HD webcast for Tampa Am. They should put this phone conference on live webcast.
If your company has products on our site, you're welcome to a free ad in our banner pool. On your company's product page, only the ad from your company will show up. On all other pages like articles, photos, and skater profiles, your ad will display randomly from the pool of ads. The size is 970x100 and no animation is allowed. You can update it as often as you want. Email them to me at rob@skateparkoftampa.com. Below are some samples from a few companies that have sent some in already.
The main street course is done and skateable today. The kiddie course should be done late tomorrow or Saturday. Check out some construction progress: Street Course Construction and Completion 2009.
If you're in St. Pete tomorrow night, join us at Durty Nelly's for an event that The Finest Skate Shop is putting on called Skateboard Industry Night, appropriately abbreviated as SIN.
The winners for the Globe Cruiser completes have been picked. I know at least one of them is a local - Yonis came out on top. See you on the Booze Cruise this Friday. The first $600 worth of sauce is all on me. The trucks on these boards are called "Slant" as in my eyes. Sick.
What song is this in this Tampa Am promo video? That one dude, you know, the guy who will be at Tampa Am 2009 on December 3 at SPoT then
on Friday, December 4, doing a show in Ybor for our 17-Year Anniversary Party at Czar. Yeah, him. Oh, and there could be a little bit of ripping skating going on.
Today the staff at SPoT got started on putting together all the skateboard parts collected in the Shop all year long. Through your discarded skate stuff and contributions from your favorite skate companies, we build as many completes as we can and give them away to as many kids as we can find in the underprivileged neighborhoods in our area. We call this charity Boards for Bros. Check out a few photos from what we did today: Boards for Bros November 2009 Assembly.
If you haven't entered the Globe Cruiser Board giveaway yet, you have one more day for that. Tomorrow, all the emails go into a spreadsheet and get sorted random. The top two get a Globe Cruiser complete. On Friday night for the Booze Cruise, the first $600 of sauce is paid for by eBay shoe nerds who bought some of my old Dunks.
One commenter suggested we change the website every year like we do the street course. As soon as we get one of me for every construction dude out there, we can make that happen. Check out some street course construction that just started. In case you don't know, we have completely changed the street course every single year since 1993 when this place was born. This is the first year we've had a slab of granite, however.
Stalker Steve took some nice chill shots at the Harvest Jam this weekend. The skate ones are sort of like the bennihanna of photography, not that mine were any good either. I know we both can do better than that. Check them out: Stalker Steve at the Harvest Jam 2009.
A known hater on the Skatepark of Tampa Facebook page also has photos from the Harvest Jam. Thanks Kirk Hallinan. I'm putting you on the next cover of Frontside Grind Magazine.
