Pembroke Pines, FL - April 4, 1999
After the incredible weekend on Miami Beach, the D-Tour Crew enjoyed its second week in the Sunshine State, this time rolling into SFX SkatePark in Pembroke Pines, FL.
D-Tour Pro Ricky Martinez showing the SFX rail what's up. Zero Spin
Farside Alley-oop soul. >>
What they probably noticed first is that most of the skaters here are small, I mean really small!!! What these little guys lack in size, they definitely make up for in their skating. No matter what size or class they were in, kids went big all weekend long.
The 12 and under class turned into a 3 way battle to see which skater could land the biggest trick. Scotty McHugh was consistently throwing his huge, stylish 540's in the quarter pipes and it was good enough to capture third place for him. Jeremy Brown pulled out a bunch of styled out street tricks, landing a disaster soul and nearly landing a disaster topside soul. His tricks were clean enough to launch him into second place. First place was captured by Adam Zabowski. He landed a 360 gap, true spin alley-oop mizou on the sub box, and with Hakeem's help, a huge backside stall on the railing to disaster 180 back in. Definitely look for these 3 skaters to be the leaders of the new school in the future.
The Open Class brought us some of the best head to head competition we have seen yet. Once again, we ended up with a rematch in the finals.
<< Scotty McHugh throwing a big 540 in the quarter pipe. Raise your hands if
you like Scotty!!!
Little Scotty McHugh stepped up a class and continued to impress the judges with his huge spins and big airs. He made it all the way through the skatebacks and pulled of a 3rd place finish. The battle for the title went down to the wire, having a best hit out of 5 tries decide who the champion would be. Adam Zabowski fought his way through the skatebacks to take on Alejandro Felix in a rematch for the finals. Adam landed a huge 360 gap and nearly pulled off a backside disaster stall to 360 in, but he couldn't stick it. Alejandro used his technical grinds to push him ahead, and then iced the victory by hitting a kind grind down the start box rail. Not bad for his first US competition, being that he is from Puerto Rico.
The real surprise in the Expert class was the amount of younger skaters who stepped up to roll with the big boys.
Leslie White pulls the method way back! >>
For half of the field, this was their first expert competition. The shorties were lead by Marc Pearson, who fought his way up after qualifying in 9th place for the finals. He scored 2 flawless runs, packed with 540's, switch true spin grinds, and big transfers to pull off a 3rd place finish in the finals. The real story of the expert finals was to see who would take the top spot and win the trip to Camp Woodward.