SPoT Life: Tampa Am 2013 Day 3 - Qualifiers and Best Trick

Posted on Sunday, December 8, 2013 by Sebastian

Video by Frank Branca and Joe Pelham.
Words and photos by Aaron Austin.

Chris

Chris Blake started off practice on Saturday morning with this wallie off the front of the rail.

Travis

Travis Glover from the ATL was speeding at this backside smith grind across the box, as you can tell from the ghostly photo.

Frank Branca, SPoT's additional filmer and team manager/ jack of all positions, had his dad, Frank, and brother, Daniel, cook a whole pig and gator tail in the courtyard.

The gator bites were a hit. Here, Frank's brother Daniel pulls another batch from the fryer.

Ryan

Ryan Thompson ollies out of his frontside bluntslides, like this one here. Incredible. We just saw Ryan ripping at the Johnny Romano Make a Wish Jam in Houston, Texas, and he continued to impress me with his skateboarding today.

Auby

Auby Taylor made the cut with tricks like this frontside olle - probably the only trick he didn't flip into.

Auby

Auby Taylor - this is how to catch your backside flip over the pyramid.

Jack

Jack Olson destroyed the course. He nearly took the golden ticket, but qualified in 2nd place. Here is Jack doing a nollie flip down the stairs.

Tyshawn

Tyshawn Jones, Chris Blake and Alex Midler watch as their money may disappear with this roll of the dice.

Skate dads in the crowd. Thanks for supporting Jake Wooten and Zion Wright, gentlemen.

Here's SPoT local Austin Butler's dad. He supports his son and skateboarding. Skate dads!

Pat

Pat Rumney - ollie over the manual pad.

Oscar

Oscar Meza didn't make the cut this year, but he still did really awesome tricks, like this frontside nosegrind pop out.

Yoshi

Yoshi Tanenbaum was already in the semifinals at this point, but still shredded all day. 360 flip over the pyramid.

Yoshi

If you haven't seen Yoshi's lazerflip down the triple set in L.A., you are missing out. It's insane.

Donovon

Donovon Piscopo. Frontside air.

Donovon

This isn't just a frontside wall ride. Donovon Piscopo did a front smith from the corner of the quarter and pulled it up into frontside wall ride. It was definitely one of the coolest things I've seen someone do on a skateboard in a long time.

Alex

Alex midler qualified 9th. This is a backside 270 lip.

Matt

Matt Berger qualified first, which means he won the golden ticket straight to the finals to join all the winners of the Damn Am contest series. Here is Matt on a kickflip backside tail slide.

Dylan

DMFP - this was his first try on Saturday. Bummed.

Dylan

Dylan still managed to do this gap back lip during best trick to receive an honorable mention and hold it down for the Skatepark of Tampa.

Ryan

Ryan Thompson decided to noseslide the judge's stand. This wall is gigantic - it's neck high, but Ryan still managed to get on top of it and slide the shit out of this nose slide. Too bad he did it just after the Independent Best Trick official time ended.

Sewa

Independent Best Trick top 3 from left to right: Matt Berger - 1st with a frontside bluntslide across, big flip out; Sewa Kroetkov - 2nd with a 360 flip nose manual nollie front foot flip out; Jack Olson - 3rd with a switch 180 crooked grind nollie kickflip out