Dropping In - Action sports Sept 23, 2015

This edition of Dropping In includes great news- Street League Series skateboarding is going to have a women’s division at the Nike SB Super Crown World Championships! Also here are the results from the Damn Am Select Series NYC, and info on a petition to bring back the Brooklyn Banks.

Street League Series Women’s Super Crown World Championship

Street League Series  (SLS) was founded in 2010 by pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdek, to create the first professional skateboarding contest series for skateboarders who compete at the highest level of skills. Dyrdek is transforming skateboarding once again with the announcement that SLS will have a Women’s skateboarding contest at the SLS Nike SB Super Crown World Championships on October 4, 2015.

Rob Dyrdek is also an entrepreneur and reality show star: he has had a few shows on MTV; started a skateboarding league; built skateparks; started a foundation, and even has his own official day (February 1). Creating an opportunity for women skaters to compete at a professional level is one of Dyrdek’s best moves.

Street League’s inclusion of women skaters raises the profile of women’s skateboarding and will improve the state of pro skateboarding for women. There has been no women’s skateboard Vert at X Games since 2011,and there has never been women’s Big Air (heck, this year at X Games Austin, there was even a Skateboard Ams Street for Men). Many of the major contests have women’s divisions, but there are still some that lack a women’s division, such as Tampa Pro, Dew Tour, and Simple Session.

SLS will now have up for grabs the biggest first place prize purse in Women’s skateboarding. While there is no parity with the men in the winnings, this is a start- and a respectable one, which can only increase the visibility of women skateboarders. Ideally, it will bring more revenue to Women’s skateboarding, which will help women’s skating grow at every level.

These are the Women on Street League Series Nike SB

Lacey Baker

Samaria Brevard

Letitia Bufoni

Marisa Dal Santo

Pamela Rose

Alexis Sablone

Alana Smith

Vanessa Torres

Skateboarding keeps your mind open and the creative juices flowing because of its endless combinations.
The deciding factor is always your own creativity.
It’s about being creative enough to take your opportunities and make the best of them

- Christian Roth, co-founder, Hessenmob Skateboards

Damn Am Select Series NYC

The SkatePark of Tampa and Street League crews took the Damn Am to New York City and Lower East Side (LES) park, September 18 and 19, 2015. There was

Yoshi Tanenbaum killed it all last weekend at LES to repeat as winner of NYC Damn Am, also earning his second Damn Am Select Series win for 2015, putting him in the top spot for Damn Am of the Year. Nike SB, 5Boro, and NY Skateboarding put in a pop-up skatepark at 50 Kent in Brooklyn this summer and that was where the Best Trick contest took place on Friday evening. The Independent Best Trick went down on the double set at LES and it was insane! Watch the highlights here.

Damn Am Select Series NYC

1. Yoshi Tanenbaum
2. Dylan Witkin
3. Dashawn Jordan
4. Maurio McCoy
5. Zion Wright
6. Alex Midler
7. Jereme Knibbs
8. Jamie Foy
9. Josh Douglas
10. Oscar Meza

Damn Am NYC Nike Best Trick 50 Kent

1. Antonio Durao-switch flip; switch frontside tailslide
2. Dashawn Jordan-backside flip; backside nosegrind
3. Andre Beverly-kickflip frontside crooked grind
4. Tyson Peterson-backside bigspin fakie 50-50
5. Yoshi Tanenbaum-hardflip from the top rope

Damn Am NYC Independent Best Trick

1. Antonio Durao- nollie backside flip
2. Clint Beswick- nollie kickflip
3. Dashawn Jordan- frontside 360
4. Oscar Meza- frontside big heelflip
5. Ryder Lawson-360 shove-it

Gotta See: Darkstar- Forward Slash

Forward Slash  is a recent classic (2012) but so good it’s one of those videos that has to be re-visited every so often. This gem is so stacked. Watch...repeat as necessary. Who's in it? Greg Lutzka. PLG. Ryan Decenzo. Tyson Bowerbank. Manolo Robles. Chet Thomas. John Hanlon. Adam Dyet.
Tons of beautiful skating, great spots, and amazing filming.

Teen BMX Rider Petitions New York to Re-Open the Brooklyn Banks

NEW YORK CITY  — A 17-year-old New York high school student and BMX competitor has started a Care2 petition urging the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) to reopen the Brooklyn Banks, one of the world’s most popular skate spots.

VIEW THE CARE2 PETITION HERE: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/869/064/493/

The Brooklyn Banks has been closed since 2010, when the DOT began using the area to store equipment during a four-year Brooklyn Bridge restoration project. The area was supposed to reopen when construction wrapped in 2014. It’s now 2015, and the Banks remains closed and filled with construction equipment.

Care2 petition author Sid Alam is a student at Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology, and has lived in New York City all his life. He says he is too young to have ever experienced the Banks, but started his Care2 petition after reading about the area and watching videos filmed there. Alam says he’s worried that if the Banks are reopened, they’ll be “made skater-proof,” or unrideable.

In 2004, Steve Rodriguez, a well-known rider and founder of New York skateboard company 5Boro, fought to save the Banks from a 2004 Parks Department plan that would have had the area filled with planters and playground equipment.

According to the New York Times, the city consulted Rodriguez before closing the area off for the 2010 restoration project, but largely ignored his recommendations as to what part of the Banks to keep open during construction. Visit Care2 and sign the petition.

www.Care2.com

Skaters, by their very very nature, are urban guerrillas:
they make everyday use of the useless artifacts of the technology burden
and employ the handiwork of the government/corporate structure in a thousand ways
that the original architects could never dream of.

-Craig Stecyk, entrepreneur,skater, surfer, photographer, artist, journalist, legend, 1976