Twelve skaters coasted into the finals in the tenth annual Volcom Costa Mesa Damn Am, the annual skateboarding contest that showcases the best of the amateurs. The Damn Am gives ams a SPOTlight, as the Skatepark of Tampa takes their brand of competition to skaters outside of the Sunshine State. These are the guys who are this close to pro and can taste it. The top two skaters, Kyle Walker and Louie Lopez, automatically earned spots in the Semi-Finals at the Tampa Am, held December 2-5, 2010.
The Costa Mesa Damn Am, for all its intensity, is still a pretty chill contest, with a relaxed atmosphere and a super buttery, spacious course filled with beautiful features. The rails, stairs, ledges, ramps, big bank and wall provided plenty of opportunities to show off. Kyle Walker strung together line after line, flowing from one course feature to the next, smoothly laying down tricks and tech. The Best Trick contest went down after the finals on the big bank and double high wall. The tricks thrown down were stellar, but David Loy killed it with a huge launch from the quarterpipe, up to the tippy top rail of the high wall where he did a smith grind stall, then gapped back into the bank.
Other highlights of the event were not only the skating, but assorted randomness including Superman crowd surfing and the mildly perverted Sketchy banana working the crowd, even throwing down a few skate moves of his own on the course, and making a few moves on spectators, but it was still good, clean fun .
