While the tensions were high because the Velocity Rider Corey Rubin has been calling out the Independent team showing up all day, it finally really happened. At about 8:10pm the Independent team shows up to the Bowie skatepark and guess what the Velocity camera is dead because painter was on the super bluff, and a huge thunderstorm started rolling in. That allowed for drehobl and alex olson to do some quick work while everyone else cruised around or just chilled out.

In all it was straight as shit just seeing some real pros roll up to the park no demo announced and just skate the local park...

Dan and Alex

Storm!!!

I am sure you guys are familiar with the Lakai video Fully Flared, now we have Fully Trippin'. The new video is up on the web in 3 parts and you can peep them below, they are uploaded by Lakai so don't worry about them disappearing.

It's a european tour with some of the yakes and the like, some good skateboarding and good times for sure, enjoy:

Finally got around to capturing some of this footage from Hyatt's camera. Few clips of Estberg ripping as usual. Enjoy:

This is just completely sick an words can't really describe how I feel about this. Merlino tried to switch heel the Love Fountain so many times and finally managed to brake his board. So many were within his grasp and he just couldn't hold it down. Kid is fucking incredible and the fact that he doesn't have a board sponsor or is like pro for someone is just mind-boggling to me. check out the youtube footage:

He actually tried a whole bunch more times in another clip online but the quality sucks so why waste your time?

Is it just me or is Sam lurkin real hard

What's a Charm contest without Hatchell winning? Well unless he wasn't actually there I would assume a rigged one. Hatchell took honors as usual, followed by Charms own Dan Corrigan. 3rd goes to the unusually good switch tranny rider Alex Johns.

But let us not forget that Velocity's own Sam Heird entered as well, coming in 18th he beat out Goode this time around, sure there was some lipslide nosegrind combos going down somewhere in his run lol.

Honorable mention my man Huber got 8th, and looks like he rides for Pitcrew now? bout damn time he has wanted it long enough.

120 Mph, 16 hours of driving, 2 days of intense skateboarding, 3 parks, and the city of Wilmington. Overall one of the funniest 3 days of my life but just doesn't compare to our road trip a few years back when we all went to Louisville but that's a different story. Mad shit went down, most of it was on camera but for what wasn't showed in the montage just don't even matter because for everyone that was there shit was epic.

Much love to Mark and Globe for the footage and cake to have the trip, hopefully we can do this shit again.

I seriously love Epicly Later'd, they just ran a 4 piece on Deawon Song and the shit was legendary. Now we are getting teased with Cardiel clips and the episode will drop the 31st.

For those of you that are too impatient check out some of the Cardiel Teasers on the VBS site. Shit will be epic be sure to peep it when it goes live.

As most of you know a good friend of mine and to everyone skateboarding on the East Coast, Velocity, friends and family, and the online community, Derek Gertz passed away earlier this year. We had a good showing for him at a local park and Mark Raymond put together a sick montage of a lot of Derek Gertz Skateboarding footage. Hopefully the City of Bowie will let us leave a footprint of Gertz in the Bowie park since he was a resident and local ripper.

Until then we just have the video footage to look back on to remember a great skateboarder and cool cat. Skate Perception has posted a montage of the year 2007 in skateboarding and the beginning clip is a dedication to Derek Gertz. Much love for Skate Perception and the influence that they had on Gertz and that Gertz had on them.

Check out the montage and remember to stay ripping and having fun.

Pitcrew has a new video out, any of you making the trip up there should hit it up. For 10 bucks I am sure it's worth a peak, especially if there is any Bobby footage :P.

Creep on this bonus footage though:

So the 3 day adventure of North Carolina has finally come to an end, and with a couple of bruises and a good amount of footage we all backed up and returned to lame ass maryland :/.

By far the highlight of the trip was day 1 at the Eastern Skate Supply Park. The fact that the place is a private park makes it by far one of the sickest and best conditioned parks I have ever been too and may very well be my current favorite park. The place had everything from street to tranny to there huge ass bowl. Just about all the footage was to be had at this park. As for the video? well Mark is working on a montage for the entire trip so hopefully we will have something to show for the trip shortly.

Later that night we hit up the Skate Barn which was haggard as shit to say the least, Mike Mann killed that place, I can't imagine him killing it to the Needles a year ago at the Eastern Party, but I am sure it was as epic as what I got to see. Robb Estberg coming through with a really sick line as well, Sam and him killed that little bowl there too. The rest of us well, lets just say I wasn't a fan haha.

Day 2 we hit up Wilmington, and we all realized that we were sore as shit from the day before so we just cruised around for a minute and then hit up a fire ass breakfast where we got some breakfast burritos that are just incredible. After that it was a straight shot to Fayetteville to session MESA (Mega Skate Plaza). Unfortunately the park didn't even have a mini-ramp, with exception to the vert wall there wasn't really any transition at the park just varied banks and what not.

Regardless the park was fun but a lot of work because of how big it was, footage was more slack but some shit went down and overall it was a good end to the trip, we packed up the cars and headed home on a 6 hour drive back to bowie.

Lots of pranks, some threats by hotel management, old ladies covered in water, burns spoofin, itching powder, fun, and some skateboarding. North Carolina will be missed.