The Blue Hair State, Anita Bryant, The movie Scarface, Miami Vice, The Dolphins, The Marlins, The Devil Rays, Who? And Typhoon Lagoon at Disney World all come to mind when the State of Florida is mentioned around me. It is hard to fathom that this is the 14th and final stop on the Tony Hawk Gigantic Skatepark and Rock Star Tour 2001, oops scratch that last part about the Rock Star stuff. I can't believe that we have been everywhere from Frankfurt to Florida all in the matter of months. Looks like I will have to wait until next year to rub shoulders with the skateboarding and BMX elite! Remember when you would come back to school from a long summer vacation? I wish I was still in school so I could tell everyone what I did over the summer! I would even write a report and call itl: "What I did on my summer vacation." by Brad J Lilley. We are taking A+ material here people!
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Even after 3 of the last 4 demos had been threatened by rain, nobody on the Hawk Tour thought our last stop would be plagued by rain. Except, of course, for the Florida weatherman who was calling for a 50% chance on the demo day, but who is counting him anyway, he ain't even on the tour. With the mullet he was rocking I am sure doesn't skate anyway. One thing I don't like about Florida is that the surf sucks! How did Kelly Slater get so good surfing these waters? If you want tropical weather, move to Hawaii so you can score some surf as well as great skate spots.
The Merritt Island Fun Plex has a great skate shop named appropriately "The Skateboard Shop", not to mention one of the smoothest skateparks I have ever skated. And you know that means something since I have been to some of the best parks in the world. Check them out on line at www.7-ply.com. JR, one of the guys responsible for some of the web stuff for the park, showed up a couple of hours early to skate, so I decided since I was there I might as well join JR for a skate!
After about an hour of skating, I struck up a conversation with the park manager, whose name was Scooter. I am not sure if that is his birth name or not. Scooter and I were trying to figure out if it was going to rain or not to no avail. About 15 minutes away from the start time there wasn't a cloud in the sky and everything looked like a green light for the demo. About 4000 kids and parents were packing in the outside park. The boys arrived and started blazing right off the bat. Tony started to bust his now patented Rodeo flip over the fun box. Cab was boardsliding everything in his sights. Markovich, a Florida native, was on a usual kickflip tear. Eric Koston was super stylee with everything he attempted. This was turning out to be one of the best demos by far on the tour and we hadn't even tackled the vert yet.
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All of a sudden these big-old gnarly dark clouds started to move over us about 45 minutes into the demo, things where not looking good. We started to hear some thunder off in the distance, and before we knew it started dumping on us cats and dogs, puddles were forming everywhere on the street course. The demo was officially on a rain hold, and things looked bleak. 2 hours later no chance of clearing and the demo was over. Looking back though, all 14 demo stops had some sort of skating going on and that in itself was a big accomplishment seeing that we were threatened by rain numerous times. Now it's time to head to Typhoon Lagoon for a private party for the crew. A little surfing and some good grub and drink, you know how it goes.
We arrived via the Hawk Tour Bus for the last time at Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon. This place is sick!! A man-made wave ranging from 3-5 feet peeled across, stretching about 40-50 yards long. You could even have your choice of waves. They had lefts or rights only or you could have a peak that broke both ways. My first surf session with Tony was on a wave machine, how cool is that? It seemed that everyone pretty much knew how to surf, even the camera guys. I saw Tony throwing down some cutbacks and Robert Earl, the self proclaimed tour leader, busted a tail slide. I myself got a couple of floaters. What a day, what a tour, what a year!
The Tony Hawk Gigantic Skatepark Tour may be over but no one could take away the great memories we all shared on the Tour. The best thing is that I get to watch all the stops on ESPN and ESPN 2 in the coming months. Check out EXPN for air times and dates. Major props to everyone who made this tour possible. Props to all the Pros to Tom, Ian, Lohtsy, Ryan, Swaggy, A-Love, Hez, Matty, Norm, Michelle, Heather, Signage crew, 900 films, DJ Adverse and of course the Man himself my hero and friend Tony Hawk. Check back for a complete Tour wrap up!! Skate Tough..
Peace Out,
Brad J Lilley
Related Photos:
Hawk Tour: Southeast Gallery
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