Oh yeah. It’s really cold. But that didn’t matter much because the eight invited shops turned up the heat proper. We landed in the tiny airport on Friday afternoon and made our way over to the Wilmington Riverside Hilton located right on the Cape Fear River. I didn’t know that Wilmington was such a small town, but small isn’t a bad thing because the place has character and history. The buildings are old, the people are friendly, and the vibe was good.
The teams checked in with us at the Hilton and before we knew it we headed across the Cape Fear over to the USS North Carolina, the decommissioned Battleship and site of the event, hence Red Bull Battleship. From across the River it just looked like a regular old big boat, but upon boarding the Carolina, I was really blown away. There were guns every which way you turned and gigantic cannons on the front of the Ship. You truly got the feeling that it caused some serious destruction when it was over near Japan in World War II. And I’m only guessing, but I assume that the numerous “rising sun” flags painted on the side represented “kills” of some sort or another.
The simple obstacles were painted battleship grey to match in with the surrounding natural terrain to fit in just right. Very often in life, less is more, and it proved to be true once again with the set-up, which consisted of a few boxes, ledges, bank ramps, flat bars, and a 4’ tall quarter-pipe. Just because the course was easy to build doesn’t mean that it’s not going to get torn to pieces. The session went into the moonlit darkness and we got the boot from the staff, who informed us that we had to take off before the ghosts took over for the evening. Apparently the USS North Carolina is considered “haunted.”
Next stop was the Eastern Skate Supply private skate park. This place was built by Team Pain and had one of the biggest, most well-built, and diverse bowls I’ve ever seen or had the pleasure of skating. This thing was amazing and I wish we had one at home in Tampa. The street course was equally unique, with angled manny pads, a flat gap, a bank to bank-to-wall (that’s not a typo), and everything else to be desired. The BBQ was delicious and the session went well into the night.
We finally got the boot at 10pm and spent the rest of the night at the Ruth’s Chris bar in the Hilton, telling stories of days gone by. What a great day we had…and it wasn’t even the event yet…
The Format
I’ll be the first to admit that the format was a bit confusing. Let me try and break it down here:
It was team vs. team
One skater from each team skated at the same time in a three-minute jam
Then another skater from each team skated at the same time
The overall scores of the skaters from each respective team were then tallied to determine which team advanced
Each team starts out in the “Survival” bracket, but if you lost, you went to the “Sunk” bracket
We ran through all eight teams once
Half “Survived” and the other half “Sunk”
We then ran through the “Sunk” teams
If you “Sunk” again, you were out because it was double-elimination
Then we went back up to the “Survival” teams and ran them again
This went on and on until we broke it down to the final two teams, with each team having to lose twice before being canceled
That’s not down to the exact detail, but I think it gets the point across. Although a bit tech, we were just stoked to be working on something new and fun.
The Battle
I woke up early, but the sun beat me to the punch. Even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the warmth went away as soon as we walked outside the hotel. Right now it’s 6:30pm and I just checked weather.com. They said it “feels like” 40 degrees at the moment. So I’m going to make an educated guess and say that it was about 55 degrees at the absolute warmest point of the day. And I bet that lasted all of an hour. However, at times the skating was so good I forgot how cold it was, but I was soon reminded when I realized I could no longer feel my toes.
Just after high noon, the first two teams to go at it were Westside and Ambush. John Montessi’s crew set the tone for the rest of the day with their complete domination of all obstacles. I could go on and on and on here, but the best way to explain what teams “Survived” and what teams “Sunk” is for you to check out the spreadsheet that breaks down the entire day.
The final scores were based on points. So even though a team or two in the final listing may have beaten a team that placed higher than them, the only way to make it completely fair was to go by the judges’ scores for each individual skater and average them for an overall team score. I know that’s an earful, but trust us…we did it fairly. Here’s the final placings:
8th - $300 – Board City (Cody Nobles, Chase Loggins, & Sal Butorac) – these dudes came from Jacksonville, Florida
7th - $300 – Continuum (Leo Simonen, Ty Brown, & Jack R. Cox) – no, we didn’t make up Jack’s name, but he sure had a good sense of humor
6th - $300 – Double Wide (Daniel Clements, Josiah Gatlyn, & Cameron Redwine) – Cameron got hurt and they had to sub in a fourth skater
5th - $500 – Vertical Urge (Scotty Moore, Connor Champion, & Brett Abramsky) – I honestly thought that these guys were going to be in the top three because Connor has a serious bag of tricks with him
4th - $600 – Ambush (Gary Sargent, Travis Glover, & Warren Devarennes) – even though of course I wanted SPoT to take it, I really thought that Ambush had a good shot with the buttery style of Travis and difficult tricks of Warren and Gary
3rd - $1,000 – Endless Grind (Jed Shooter, Tom Hyson, & Sam Buxton) – I must say that these guys from Raleigh really came to skate and give it 100%. They lost their final batter with SPoT, but it was the closest one of the day with both teams giving it their all
2nd - $1,500 – Skatepark of Tampa (Pat Stiener, Dylan Perry, & Abdias Rivera) – after losing their first battle to Double Wide, I thought that our crew was going to be sitting the rest of the day out. But a come-back was in order, and we beat Double Wide, Ambush, and Endless Grind to battle Westside for the title
1st - $3,000 – Westside (Brent Sowinsky, TJ Sparks, & Willy Kane) – there was no denying that Westside dominated the entire day. They didn’t even lose a single battle to any other team. Hats off to John’s crew for destroying, earning every penny, and taking the title like true champs
It was over just as fast as it started, and only a mere four hours later. I’ve said it many times before, but I’m a huge fan of these one-day events. We got off deck and headed down into the café where the teams collected their respective checks, headed back to the hotel, and now it’s time to hit the town…
Thanks
Now I’m writing the rest of this the next morning and by the looks of the crew waiting in the lobby for a ride to the airport, it seems as if everyone had a damn fun time last night. We started with dinner at a brew-pub with the Red Bull crew, and then made it over to the After-Party, which was at some bar called Liquid something. It was a major dude-fest, but skateboarders are pretty used to that aspect of partying.
First and foremost, thanks to all of the teams for pulling together and making the effort to attend. Whether it was airplane or by car, we appreciate everyone coming out and showing support.
Also, our friends at Red Bull (Bob, Lisa, Sarah, Veronica, and I’m sure I’m forgetting someone) sure made it easy to have a good time. They took care of travel expenses, hotels for everyone, and even some food here and there. Let’s not forget to mention handling the logistics of renting the Battleship and fronting the loot for the purse. Thanks guys.
Additionally, thanks to Reggie Barnes and everyone at ESS for letting us skate the private park, the staff of the USS North Carolina for being so easy to work with, and Jona Owings and Allen Russell at Hazard County handling the construction of the ramps in such a professional manner.
This was our final event of the year and it sure was a great ender. Thanks to everyone for all of the support in 2008 and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you somewhere in 2009.
Red Bull invited Dylan Perry, The Body, Alex Bowers, and Jorge Angel to skate in a couple demos at the Harvest of Hope Music Festival last weekend. Jorge took some pictures...
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.
