Hey Tampa… let's party - Florida

Thrasher Magazine, June, 2002 by Patrick O'Dell

Before the finals Brian Schaefer and Ryan Clements organized a betting pool on who the top two placers would be. Everyone threw in $20 and the total came out to about $500. My bet was Andrew Reynolds and Tony Trujillo. Unfortunately, Tony was in pile mode. Good looking out TNT, you flicking wipeout! Sam Smyth of Girl skateboards won. He yelled over and over, "I was the only one who had faith!"

Ybor City

At night everyone goes to Ybor. One option is Masquerade--a bar with sort of a dive half where most of the hessian type pros lurk-- the kind of place you can sit slumped over the bar if you feel like it or get in a game of pool. The other half is a giant maze of a club that makes it feel kind of empty; I tended to stick to the slummy half.

The other spot in Ybor is the Empire. It had a VIP room with free drinks for just about anyone who was at the contest. This is one of those really loud booty bars. I enjoyed the balcony. Occasionally a woman would walk by with a try of these florescent drinks in vials. Fred Gall just bought the whole tray and we would sit there and slurp them all up. I have no idea what they were, I think it was mostly sugar.

Saturday night was the St. Patrick's Day parade in Ybor, so there were hoards of drunk-asses in green stumbling around. I love St Patrick's Day, my name is Patrick, I'm Irish, I drink a lot. It's the holiday made for me.

Best Trick

Best trick this year was held on the big vert wall. You could transfer up to it from both directions or go straight up and do a trick.

Freddy Gall managed to silence the critics with a transfer crooked grind which may not have netted him any awards, but was epic nonetheless.

Caz grinded across the whole wall and ollied into the bank, nailing a photo chump in the process. I swear he was about to punch the guy.

Chris Senn took sixth with a half-flip to rock to half-flip, whatever that's called. I'm sure it has a name somewhere and Phelps is going to call me and say "O'Dell, You're fired! That's called a flipped-bird!" or something. I can be pretty clueless.

Patrick Melcher loved this wall. He kept doing frontside tailslides reverting down almost the entire wall all weekend. He got fifth for a nollie backside tailsilde revert.

Dan Drehobi did the dumptruck into fourth.

Aaron Suski did the frontside tailslide backside revert with his patented smooth style for third.

Chany Jeanguenin got second with a backside lipslide revert and a sugarcane revert.

Mike Vallely won it with a wall jam revert. I liked watching him skate in circles in the empty spot where the vert ramp used to be before his run. He'd just keep going around in circles looking so pissed: that's how he would get psyched up. His winning trick was pretty sick, but I liked watching him get pissed more.

Guess who?

After the contest we hung out with our new official Thrasher girl Carrie. On our last trip some of the crew stole a video tape she made, and it got...sorta circulated. I felt bad 'cause people kept going up to her and saying "Nice video," but she was relatively cool about it. Alex Moul, Frank Gerwer, Carrie and I headed back to the Milner to throw a little pool party. I made Nate Sherwood pressure flip into the pool for a sequence. The party got pretty rowdy, but was unfortunately cut short by the police.