Tampa Am 2009

Tampa Am, wow, If you are skating in the contest this can be one of the most stressful and overwhelming weekends of your life. But I want to point out the right way to come to Tampa am, because if you look at it with the right attitude it will be awesome. Everyone at the contest is the same we are all simply people who love skateboarding, so once you get your skating out of the way good or bad, if you have the right attitude you can sit back and enjoy the mind blowing shredding, and the good company of skaters from all over the world. This was my fourth year being here, and I have never done as good as I would like but I have some really awesome memories from the years, and I have made friends from all over the world, so over all tampa am has been great and done only good for my skateboarding.

This year was no different, I got to hang out with some of my good friends from Missouri, Shawn Hale, and Alex Vestal. I met and hung out with Kris Markovich for the first time. Kris Markovich is a skateboarding legend and he is also a sick artist, make sure to check out some of his work! However, the best part was that I got to chill and skate with a few of my Maryland homies that I haven’t seen in months. Dan Corrigan, Brandon Wingate, Sean Powderly, Tony Massey, and Corey Huber. Everyone killed it, Brandon Wingate did a kickflip Fs blunt down one of the handrails. Sean Powderly did a switch back lip down the handrail. Tony did a b/s 270 lipslide down the handrail. Dan Corrigan killed it, and qualified in the best trick with smith bigspins, and smith 360’s. He was doing them like they are easy tricks. And if you don’t know yet or haven’t heard yet Shawn Hale from Vu skateshop Got 8th place over all! Shawn destroyed the whole park, skating it like it was a mini ramp. If you want to see his skating check any of the videos from the finals I am sure you will see footage from him all over. There were so many tricks that went down I wish I could tell you all of them. But I just don’t have enough time or paper to write them all. I think the coolest thing about my run was that I did a front shuv wallride, and they called me out for doing Gary Smith tricks! Hahaha, I am honored!

But anyway, Like I said this is my fourth Tampa am and the rate skateboarding is progressing is so incredible. Watching the finals was so gnarly it was like watching a video game. I am not kidding, these guys didn’t even mess up most of them had flawless runs filled with hammers and some trick names that I don’t even know!

Over all my trip was rad, it was with friends and skating, two of the best things in life. I have been blessed to get to be a part of such a cool skateboarding event 4 years in a row and hope to see you guys there next year!

Here are some pictures of the event check them out!- TOM GEILFUSS