Words by Ryan Clements
No photos and stick figures by Rob Meronek

Abdias Rivera - 50-50 on the Shredillac

Who dat? Barefoot ollie. Check out the aftermath

Billy Marks - 360 flip manual on the Shredillac

Justin Figueroa

Jordan Hoffart

Jacob Walder - switch heel

Mike Franklin

Sierra Fellers

Tommy Sandoval

We arrived to some chilly air in beautiful San Diego late Friday night. It was much warmer back home in Florida; good thing that we brought sweatshirts. Saturday morning we woke up early to dismal skies. It was overcast and there was a bit of a drizzle here and there. Not the best scenario to hold a skateboarding event in a parking lot, but things have a way of working themselves out.

We rolled over to the site at about 10:30am and the ramp crew was putting the finishing touches on all of the obstacles, including the infamous Rincon Replica. We bolted for some lunch, socialized like we all do at these skateboarding shindigs, and then made it back just in time to get the demo started.

The Rincon Replica was off limits until the actual Contest, but a demo with some great skating went down beforehand on the rest of the obstacles. There were several superstars in the crowd and others just hanging out playing SKATE.

The Black Box crew was out in force. Tons of kids wear Fallen shoes in SoCal, therefore there were many Mystery, Zero, and Fallen guys representing properly. It was rad to see Ben Gilley and his crew in the crowd. As a matter of fact, the entire judging panel (Rothmeyer, Sinclair, Howard) were Black Box employees. I swear, we didn’t plan it that way.

So the demo went on for a couple of hours and then the clock struck 5pm and it was on. The space was cleared and the contestants started eyeing up the gigantic drop. I’m sure you’ve heard of Rincon. It’s that gnarly gap to rail with a big four next to it and when you land you end up on a basketball court. This obstacle was constructed as an exact copy, to the very inch, and from the top looking down it was quite intimidating.

This year there seemed to be more busters in there than last year. And by buster I mean that they really didn’t have what it takes to skate in a contest of that caliber. If you’re doing melon grabs and 180 ollies, however gnar they may be on Rincon, it’s just not exactly your time to shine at Spring Break Yo’Self!

Before we get to what went down, here are a few things that have nothing to do with anything:

• It was rad to see Abdias Rivera there!
• Rob shoots the photos and writes the captions and I write the stories. This is our general M.O. Special note: I saw Rob shooting mad photos all day, so I’m betting that we’re going to get to see some great skateboarding photos in this article. Yeah, Rob!
• Some kid ollied it barefoot (Lee Ralph/Huckleberry Finn Challenge) and earned $100
• After winning $30,000 in February down in Oz, Adam Dyet came up short…bummer ‘cause we love giving him money
• Carlos Ruiz is crazy. He kept trying gap to kickflip fs boardslides and seriously pummeled himself onto the pavement several times over

Sun Diego, along with the support of the sponsors, graciously coughed up $25,000 for the purse. Damn that’s a lot of money to give away in only an hour. Here’s how it ended when it was all said and done:

• 12th – $100 – Jordan Hoffart – mad snaps and smooth style
• 11th – $100 – Kyle Grogan – hyped to get $100…really hyped. Sick bs flip
• 10th – $100 – Jacob Walder – switch heel butters
• 9th – $200 – Nick Fiorini – super smooth, too bad he didn’t land the nollie crooks
• 8th – $400 – Aldrin Garcia – who is this kid? No idea, but he had a great fs flip and hardflip
• 7th – $500 – Mike “Owin’” Franlin – fs lipslide and fs smith over the bar
• 6th – $500 – Billy Marks – 360 flip and a swith fs big heel (damn)
• 5th – $1000 – Ryan Decenzo – kickflip and fs lipslide to fakie over the bar
• 4th – $2000 – Kevin Romar – bs nollie 306 helicopter spin
• 3rd – $3000 – Sierra Fellers – fs bigspin to boardslide on the gap out to rail
• 2nd – $5000 – Justin Figueroa – 360 flip first try down the stairs and a proper fs feeble on the long rail! I think Justin was thoroughly surprised when his name was called for 2nd place
• 1st – $10,000 – Tommy Sandoval – damn, he did it again! Nice work by last year’s winner. He had too many tricks to even name. Tommy was on a mission as he dissected each piece of the obstacle and checked each trick off of the list

As the old saying goes…it’s not a good skateboarding event unless the cops show up. Is that even an old saying? I’m not sure, but it definitely sounds good. And the cops sure did show up. I guess that the event attracted more spectators than anticipated and the surrounding businesses weren’t too pleased, but you would think that they would be hyped on additional customers.

The Product Toss got a bit crazy and two teenager kids started trying to punch each other with full-on haymakers. Even though they didn’t even make contact, the cops weren’t feeling it and had the sound guy cut off our mics. How in the world were we supposed to control a crowd with no microphones? San Diego’s finest were pissed, but we pleaded with them and then granted us “one more minute” on the mics to give out the awards.

After we were done, one of the cooler cops was all surprised and said, “I didn’t know you were giving out so much money! We didn’t realize this was such a big deal.” Well, now you know…

The After-Party at Canes was mellow and fun…with good food and an open bar courtesy of Paul at Sun Diego (thanks!). Thanks to Security for being cool, DJ Pat for the tunes, all of the sponsors, and everyone that helped out to make Spring Break Yo’Self a success. See you next year? Time will tell, but we certainly hope so…

Ryan

All my camera gear was stolen by airport security so there are no skate photos. Here's a drawing of one of the photos I took that shows part of the scene at the Contest. See you next year.