Damn Am Costa Mesa 2009 Presented by Volcom, Cons, and The Skateboard Mag: Story and Video Footage
Posted on Monday, October 26, 2009
Words by Ryan Clements
Sure, it’s in the parking lot of the Volcom facility. I’ve heard about a couple of individuals that have called us out for that, as if it’s a bad thing. Sorry that it’s not in an arena. And those same individuals claim that we let anyone into our events just to make the money off of the entry fees, too. Come on. Really? If that’s what you think, then you’ve probably never been to one of our events. And if you have been and you still think that, well, then I don’t really know what to tell you because you’ll probably never get it at this point.
My trip out to Costa Mesa this time was slightly different than those in the past. I was the legal guardian of a kid named Mark. He won the grand prize of our raffle at the Free Day last summer at SPoT, which benefited the Children’s Cancer Center. So I was with Mark 24/7, which some may view as a damper, but it was actually really rad and we had a fun time together…or at least I did.
We’d wake up early and head over to the Contest site each day. Getting there first thing is always the best. It’s nice and quiet, only a couple of kids are skating, and the mist from the Pacific Ocean has not yet burned off. It’s borderline cold and a sweatshirt is needed, but by the time the sun burns through the mist, it gets pretty damn hot out.
On Friday, about midday, Mark and I got the opportunity to go “shopping” in the Volcom Store. To even get into the thing you have to be on some special list. We got to pick (for free) any 12 items we wanted, so thanks for taking such good care of us, Volcom. Each night we tried to do something fun and cool, too. Thursday night we ate dinner on the Huntington Pier, Friday night we went to the Jeremy Wray Art Show, and Saturday night we attended the IASC Skateboarding Hall of Fame Inductions. It was a jam-packed few days for sure.
Ollie Pop High Ollie Contest
On Saturday, immediately following the Qualifiers, we hosted yet another High Ollie Contest. These things are so damn fun and thanks to our friends at Ollie Pop for kicking down a G for the prize money.
1st – $500 – 42” – Luis Tolentino – the dude is a full-on athlete. Famous Stars and Straps in the house
2nd – $300 – 42” (after time) – Kechaud Johnson – made it after his allotted tries, which is why even though he cleared the 42” height, he ended up in 2nd
3rd – $200 – 41” – Norman Woods – from Chicago to Costa Mesa, it’s rad to have Norman part of the Damn Am Family
The Contest
There were approximately 170 skaters in the Contest and the Qualifiers took place on Friday and Saturday. We took a total of 32 skaters from Friday’s and Saturday’s Qualifiers and put them into the Semi-Finals. The 1st place skaters from each of those days got a spot directly in the Finals. Of course it was Flip’s finest, Louie Lopez and Luan Oliveira, taking those top honors. The rest had to a battle it out in the Semis for the 10 spots in the Finals with three, one-minute runs. Here’s how it worked out and thanks to Electric, Skull Candy, Bones, and Vestal for the additional prizes for both Street and Best Trick:
1st – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher & Dean Guitar – Luan Oliveira – okay Luan, it’s time to go pro
2nd – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher – Clint Walker – my personal favorite over the weekend
3rd – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher & Dean Guitar – Tommy Werner – he got really good over the past year
4th – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher – Felipe Gustavo – switch flip bs tailslide shuv it out…unreal
5th – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher – Brodie Penrod – couldn’t even tell that his switch feebles were switch…great style
6th – Timmy Knuth – my boy may have bumped up a place or two if he landed his “harder trick” run
7th – Louie Lopez – I know, it’s time for me to finally watch Extremely Sorry
8th – Chase Webb – the new Sheckler. I’m not saying that to rip on him at all, but he reminds us of Shecks when he was that age
9th – Filipe Ortiz – I’m such a fan of this guy. He goes big on everything
10th – CJ Dixon – straight out of Florida and speeding all over the course
11th – Derek Elmendorf – the skateboarder formerly known as Deathwish is gnarly
12th – Rob Maatman – got hurt right before the Finals and couldn’t make it happen
DNA Orange Juice Best Trick
Andrew Cannon said, “Nice job on changing up the course this year.” Okay man, you got us on that one. There weren’t too many changes; therefore there wasn’t exactly a new obstacle to host the Best Trick on. The pyramid and long rail worked just fine though:
1st – $500 Zumiez Travel Voucher – Clint Walker – gap to front board shuv it on the pyramid rail and 5-0 across and down to kickflip out on the pyramid rail
2nd – Aaron Collier – backside bigspin to backside lipslide on the pyramid rail. What? I’ve never even seen anyone do that
3rd – Dylan Witkin – 12 foot pyramid gap to frontside noseblunt slide on the pyramid rail
4th – Chris Mendes – kickflip backside tailslide bigspin out on the pyramid rail
5th – Kechaud Johnson – 12 foot gap to frontside smith grind on the pyramid rail
Zumiez Destroyer Award
At every Damn Am and Tampa Am, too, we give out the Zumiez Destroyer Award. It goes out to the skater that really stands out and made a difference in the event. This skater doesn’t have to win or even make the cut for that matter…he just has to shred and make a difference. This time it went to someone that not only made a difference, but he got 2nd in Street and 1st in Best Trick. Nice job Clint Walker!
Thanks
As a worker at our events, all I know is that we try hard to do a good job and make sure that everyone leaves happy. We never really know if we’re accomplishing this or not, but I have a feeling that we did a pretty good job of it at Damn Am Costa Mesa this year. I’ve never had more skaters come up to me and say “thanks” than this past weekend. But the THANKS really goes out to the skaters, parents, friends, and industry support that we seem to get at each and every one of our events. Friendly faces were abundant and literally everywhere. Even the kids that we were giving a bit of a hard time to over the mic came up and said “thanks.” Your words are our rewards for doing this, so thank you everyone. Finally, thanks to all of our sponsors. We couldn’t do it without the following brands: Volcom, Cons, The Skateboard Mag, Zumiez, Red Bull, DNA Orange Juice, Ollie Pop, Indy, Mob, PA Skateboards, World Industries, Dean Guitars, Dakine, Bones, Electric, Vestal, and Skull Candy.
Finals Footage
Finals Footage from Colin Clark: Felipe Ortiz, Felipe Gustavo, Brodie Penrod, Tommy Werner (big flip front board on the rail), Derek Elmendorf, CJ Dixon, Luan Oliveira, Louie Lopez, Rob Maatman (gap back smith, hell yeah), Felipe Gustavo, and Clint Walker (giant gap to 5-0 on the hubba and body varial ollie - wow).
DNA Orange Juice Best Trick Footage
Jesse Fritsch from Shred or Die has some clips of the bangers.
Semi-Finals Footage from Colin Clark: Eniz Fazliov, Chase Webb, Felipe Gustavo (switch flip back tail on the hubba!?!?), Shawn Hale, Brodie Penrod, Cody Davis, Manny Santiago, White Knight, Tyson Bowerbank, Rob Maatman, and CJ Dixon (frontside bigspin front lipslide on the bump to bar - damn).
Party Cam Footage
From Rob's chill cam: Porpe interviews Theotis Beasley about who he made out with at the Damn Am After-Party, Nick Merlino is all about the shots, and I just realized I poured a shot on Porpe after watching this. Oops, sorry Porpe!
Saturday Heats: Part Three
Randoms plus Dylan Perry, Chris Mendes, Ben Cabreana, Felipe Gustavo, the worst shirt in the Contest, Julian Christianson, Miles Canavello, Caedyn Curto, Kevin Romar, Oscar Meza, Derek Elmendorf, and Norman Woods.
Saturday Heats: Part Two
More from footage from Colin Clark: Tyson Bowerbank, Theotis Beasley, Who Dem?, White Knight, Louis Tolentino, Paul Torrento, and Derrick Wilson.
Saturday Heats: Part One
Check some early Saturday Damn Am footage from Colin Clark including Kyle Walker, Alex Longcamp, Who Jap?, Shawn Hale, Who Dat?, Jared Huss, Ryan Thompson, Bryant Chapo, Jake Hill, longboarder Jeremy Peckham, and finishing up with Luan Olivera's amazing runs looking like he's not even trying. Second heat just wrapped up and we're on to the last three.
Friday Heats: Part Three
Another minute of ripping from late Friday afternoon at Damn Am Costa Mesa.
Friday Heats: Part Two
Aaron Collier, some Who Dat's, Kevin Sykes, Nick Matthews, Manny Santiago, Jordan Reppin, CJ Dixon, and Jereme Knibbs.
Friday Heats: Part One
Colin Clark has some highlights from Friday's Street Qualifiers at Damn Am Costa Mesa. Check out Dustin Blauvelt, Tyler Elsey (unsponsored, got in with video footage), Kechaud Johnson, Caesar Rosado (recently had a Mag Minute, Thrasher Sponsor Me feature), a couple Who Dat?'s, Matt Lonergan, John Fitzgerald, Nolan Helmstetter, Louie Lopez, Donovan Piscopo, Raymond Macken, and Nick Tucker.
Dinner and Some Questions With Nick Merlino
From Rob's chill cam: I had dinner with Foundation Team Manager, Mike Sinclair, who brought along Nick Merlino which made for a fairly entertaining time. I used the chill cam to film some of Nick's banter ranging from fear of flying, to his least favorite skater in the Contest, to his smooth ways with the females.
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.
