Pedro Barros-winner

 Pedro Barros had the fire in his eyes as he destroyed the bowl contest at the Pantech Open in Ocean City, Maryland. Maryland native Bucky Lasek took second and Ben Hatchell rounded out the podium, both with strong showings. History was made as this was was the first contest thrown in a temporary, portable cement bowl, the first of it’s kind ever built. Portable bowl on the beach kind of sounds like– outhouse –but this bowl was absolutely not a piece of crap. Everyone of the skaters that I talked to,  said it was fun to ride. Steve Caballero was raving about the bowl and talking about how great this event is for the new generation of skaters. Even the event itself was fun. Often, ‘Made for TV’ skateboard events feel more like being in a prison than going skateboarding, with someone always yelling at you, telling you were can’t be and so on.

Bucky Lasek- 2nd place

Ben Hatchell-3rd place

The vibe on the deck in Ocean City was much more– dare we say– fun? Maybe the good bowl vibes spread through the security and all the camera people or there were conscious decisions made to make it more like a really fun skateboard event. While the skateboarders and hot skate action were definitely the stars of the show, the bowl itself, the vibe on the deck and the fact that it was a little cooler definitely contributed to a good time overall. 

Andy Macdonald- 4th place

Nolan Munroe-5th place

The ten skaters were broken down into two groups of 5 and given four 35 second runs with their top two run scores determining the results. This was different than the 15 minute jam sessions they did in qualifying. The top 5 of the 10 were taken and put in a second super jam to determine the final results. Four of the guys, Pedro, Bucky, Andy and Rune also skated in the vert ramp. A few of the guys were talking about the challenges of skating the different transition sizes.

At the beginning of practice it did seem the timing was off for some of the guys skating vert too but these guys are the best in the world and seemed to find their bowl legs. Nolan Munroe made it into the final, his crazy transfer line from shallow to deep, over the hip and into big 540 on the face wall of the deep end definitely did not hurt. Andy MacDonald has a very deep bag of tricks so it’s no surprise that he cracked the top 5. Ben Hatchell went to work on the lip, maybe more so than anyone else in the final, deep end, shallow end, flat wall, corners, he worked the lip with speed and style. The fact that he threw in airs, including padless 540’s in the deep means it’s no surprise he got on the podium.

If you know Bucky Lasek you know he can throw down in a bowl like this. Bucky is so good at these things you pretty much expect him to win. A few bails kept him in second but Bucky is always rad to watch. Pedro went huge, went fast, had the sick transfer lines and threw down multiple 540’s. Pedro won the Pool Party in epic style and had a similar performance in Ocean City. – George Crosland

Thank you to George Crosland for the text & Allisports for the images. Skate- Ozzie

Finals Results

1 Pedro Barros

2 Bucky Lasek

3 Ben Hatchell

4 Andy Macdonald

5 Nolan Munroe

6 Omar Hassan

7 Rune Glifberg

8 Ben Raybourn

9 Benji Galloway

10 Kevin Kowalski