Ricardo Paterno and Rob Maatman are two Euro ams that destroy it. This is Rob - backside noseblunt slide
Who Dat? I can't remember, but I do know Stevie's photo of this switch heel is going to look a lot better than my lazy one from across the parking lot. UPDATE: It's Will Fyock
Eniz Fazliov is another ripping Euro. That's a 360 flip down the stairset in that Euro way they do them
Tyler Elsey got in without any sponsors by sending me some video footage. That's a lipslide
Ryan Spencer is from Kihei, Hawaii. He had some large snaps. This is an ollie over the box
Last time I saw Peter Molek, he was hammered on the streets of Rotterdam. Thanks for coming all the way over to Costa Mesa, Peter. That's a switch frontside nosegrind on the rail
Ryan Spencer - frontside bluntslide transfer in front of the SPoTlight crew and judges. DJ Wade, Vern Laird, Ryan Clements, Jason Rothmeyer, Brian Howard, Mike Sinclair, Alex Moul, and Brian Young
Rob Maatman shows you how to catch a kickflip
In Nate Linford's footage he sent me to get into Damn Am, he did a heelflip indy so I almost cancelled him. He ended up doing pretty good in Friday's Qualifiers. This is a back smith on the rail
Dustin Blauvelt - switch frontside heelflip
Kechaud Johnson - frontside feeble
In the days leading up to the Contest, I saw footage of Caesar Rosado on Thrasher and his Mag Minute. I'm glad I got to meet this dude at the Contest. Super nice guy and he's ripping, too, plus hot dance moves while watching the Contest thanks to DJ Wade's jams. This is a big flip over the hip
Dan Knapp - smokin ollie transfer
I first met Matt Lonergan at the Maloof Money Cup earlier this year. He got in there by winning some video footage contest they had. He just missed the cut on Friday at 20th place. That's a frontside feeble down the rail
John Fitzgerald is taller than you and he uses those snaps that come with height to do stuff like this ollie over the rail to 5-0 down it
Sam Baker had some ripping footage that got him into the Contest, too. He's looking like a baby Colin McKay. This is a nollie laser flip over the hip. Usually a Tampa Kit is worn super tight, like a wetsuit or Batman outfit. This is the baggiest Tampa Kit I have ever seen
Donovan Piscopo - ollie up to 5-0 on the quarter
Nick Tucker - nollie inward heel
Alex Gourdouros - nollie big spin
Right after this, Vern said "I hate bonelesses, but that's a good looking boneless" on the mic. I agree, I'm not a fan of the boneless, but Lee Loughridge makes them look good just like the skater he's growing up to be
Mike Franklin is showing his support for DJ Wade with that shirt on this backside tailslide
Kids born in 1998 are doing backside 360's down stair sets. That's Alex Midler
Volcom set up some random stuff to skate behind the course. Luis Tolentino has a first try front bluntslide on this tall box
How about to fakie? Sure, Luis Tolentino has that first try, too
Dalton Dern was out back warming up on the quarter with back smiths
Luis Tolentino - switch nosegrind
CJ Dixon is on the 5Boro flow program now and it's looking like he's well on his way to being full on. This is a noseblunt slide on the rail
Jereme Knibbs missed the Finals by a couple spots, but it was hard enough just getting to the Semi-Finals. That's a kickflip over the rail
There always has to be at least one am shuffle. This time it's Angel Munoz
Andrew Cannon can do no grab tuck knees
Ethan Loy is David Loy's brother and you could easily tell in the style and flow of his skating. That's a back tail on the A rail. Welcome to the Damn Am
Also new to the Damn Am is, Manchild. He's 11 and very deserving of his nickname. This could be baby Busenitz right here. He never made this high speed frontside flip lipslide in his runs, but he was definitely killing it in practice. I am looking forward to watching this kid grow up for sure
Ethan Loy - frontside nosegrind
My autofocus failed me on this frontside flip sequence of Cesar Fernandez
Who Dat? Can't remember who this is nollie flipping here
Patrick Ryan - stalefish. The DNA OJ sure was not stale. They were making it fresh all weekend
Luis Tolentino - ollie over the box, no bump needed
Jereme Knibbs started his runs with a backside 360
Kechaud Johnson - kickflip
Clint Walker sure made a lot of new fans this weekend. This ollie over to feeble grind was just one of many unique moves he was throwing down
Clint Walker - 50-50 up and down the A rail
Ethan Loy definitely learned this from his brother
Chase Webb - frontside nosegrind
Jack Olsen - noseblunt slide
Andrew Cannon - crooks pop over, checkin'
Chase Webb - frontside flip
Back at the Maloof Money Cup this summer, we saw some random dude do a feeble grind frontside 270 out on a wet course that was pretty amazing. Turns out that was Damian Loud who I had the pleasure of meeting this weekend. He rips but fell off in his runs which is what happens to a lot of people. Check out this one foot nose manual on the box
In addition to this switch 50-50, Derek Elmendorf was also doing fakie ollie switch frontside feeble grind down this rail
Ethan Loy - frontside tailslide
Filipe Ortiz - backside flip
Jeffrey Marshall - frontside pop shuv it nosegrind
Kechaud Johnson ended up in 2nd for the Ollie Pop High Ollie Contest
Leticia Bufoni's got her Tampa Kit on for this meron grab instead of the high heels and red dress
Nick Tucker - switch heel down the stairset
Filipe Ortiz - frontside flip
Patrick Ryan - frontside air
Paul Torrento - big spin boardslide
Timmy Knuth - switch 180 nosegrind
Tommy Werner - noseblunt slide
Vincent Luevanos aka White Knight - switch heelflip. I should have shown up as this dude for Halloween
You know the routine, right? This was our 8th annual trip out to California to what we like to dub the West Coast Tampa Am. It’s also the last Damn Am of the year prior to Tampa Am in December…
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.
