Friday, March 26, 2010

Florida Bowlriders Cup 2010 - Part 2: Sunday at Kona

On the second and final day of Florida Bowlriders 2010, the rain came in and nearly washed the contest away. Thankfully, most of the competitors waited it out and stuck around for everything to dry. I'm glad they did, because the event ended up being one of the raddest things ever by the end of the night. While it was raining, Kona skatepark invited everyone into the clubhouse to watch movies, including a documentary on the bro bowl in Tampa. Unfortunately, I didn't head up to the park till after the rain stopped, so I missed out, but from what I hear people were having a good time regardless of the weather.

Once the pool dried out and things were skatable again, the contest started up with the pros up first-basically the order was reversed from the previous day. Just as before, the pros were ripping and pretty much everyone was on top of their game on Sunday. I actually think watching people skate the bowl at Kona was a little more exciting, just because of the fact that there was less time going from one section to the other, and more time doing tricks.

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Juan Pineiro

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Clay Kreiner

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Steven Pineiro

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Dalton Dern

Another highlight of Sunday's contest was the open am division. I said it before, but I'll say it again: these kids were nuts. Any contest where more than 2 competitors can do 540s is a decent one in my book. Unfortunately I missed most of the girls' contest and the men's category was dropped altogether, but I did catch the Masters division was was also a lot of fun to watch, minus a grisly shoulder/collarbone injury that I really wished I hadn't seen. I hope things end up alright for that skater, because he was a ripper and placed in the top 3 on Saturday.

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Levi

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Tim Johnson

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After the contest was done with and the scores were being counted and processed, pretty much everyone in the park hit the snake run at the same time. This was quite the site to behold, with people from all age groups running back to the top of the snake as soon as they hit the bottom, over and over again. It was a constant stream of people. Not only that, but halfway into it, Kona's resident wild man pulled out the kitchen sink from Built to Shred fame. Quite a few people rode this thing down the snake, too - including Benji Galloway and his wife and park owner Martin Ramos. Martin actually rode it on his knees, going head first - insane! Equally awesome was watching Pedro Barros and his friend attempt tandem downhill riding (aka the Catamaran) while going down the snake. They were horrible at it, and kept running into people and falling all over the place. They even flew off the side of the snake at the first turn. They survived, and kept trying till the contest results were ready, but I don't think they ever made it down the whole way. It was a lot of fun though, and watching everything go down at the end of the day made me stoked for skateboarding.


For the winners of the contest, Kona had personal decks made by Deckcrafters that had a graphic created by and autographed by legend Lance Mountain himself. These things looked awesome! The awards ceremony lasted till past closing time for the park, and by the time it was done, I was ready to crash. In Summary, Bowlriders 2010 was an amazing time and I can't wait to experience it again. I want to say thanks to Martin Ramos for having me, to all the skaters for being a part of it, and to Rachel Henley for sharing the camera for the event. I hope to see all of you here again next year!

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You can see the full results and more here at Kona's Website (on the right hand side). Also, I recommend befriending them on Facebook for more regular updates - you can do that here.

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