Saturday, March 30, 2013

Tampa Pro 2013

   My experience this year at Tampa Pro was pretty mellow. I'd already convinced myself that without a good telephoto, I probably wasn't going to get any next level action shots of the contest. So, I brought out my 50mm and just tried to take in everything that was going on.
   This year, the Skatepark of Tampa is celebrating their 20th anniversary. For me, that's a little hard to believe, and it makes me feel a little bit old. But it's not that bad, as there were famous dudes twice my age ripping on the vert ramp all weekend, and Ron Allen was ripping the street course at the ripe old age of 50.
   One of my favorite moments of the weekend has to be talking with Lance Mountain, who mid conversation, advised a wobbly looking kid who wandered onto the vert ramp to "Try Christian's board - It'll make you go higher". This kid looked like he'd never been on a skateboard, but that didn't stop him from picking up Christian Hosoi's skateboard and dropping into the vert ramp like it was no big deal.
   Ben Raybourn had my favorite run of the weekend, blasting huge ollies off of every transition and doing some high speed slides and kickflips too. Not to mention the sickest looking tweaked smith grind I've seen in 20 years.  I also enjoyed Evan Smith's skating, and he ripped pretty hard for a rookie pro. Can't wait to see more of his skating. BusStop homie Kyle Berard even won the Fan Favorite award, so I'm not bummed at all about the weekend. Actually, I think the fact that this is the second year in a row that I've hung out in the same room as Eric Koston, Lil' Wayne, and the blonde kid from Eastbound and Down is pretty cool. And I haven't even mentioned Erica Yary. 

You can check out the full gallery from the weekend here. I'll update this with more photos soon.
(top photo: Jeff Grosso getting upside-down) 

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