Bowl-A-Rama

Bowl-A-Rama!!! No it's not a 10 pin bowling tournament, it's a skateboard bowl competition. Like all those empty drained pools that you see kids thrashing in all those skating videos, except this was a purpose built skate bowl, not someone's pool. It's part of the skate park down at Waitangi Park and it's host to the first stop on the annual World Cup Skateboarding Bowl-A-Rama tour.

I stopped by for about an hour and a half this morning wanting to shoot some photos. Security wasn't very tight and I was surprised that they were letting so many people up onto the deck surrounding the bowl! SWEET!! :) So I started shooting the last 10 minutes of the open warmups. Pretty much a free for all as ALL the competitors were testing out the bowl...warming up and choosing their lines. Then before Heat 1, there was a 10 minute warmup for Heat 1 competitors only, and then the 10 minute heat itself.

During the warmups for Heat 3, it started to drizzle a little bit...rain and skateboarding don't mix. So they decided to delay the heat to let the bowl surface dry a little. The weather wasn't getting any better or worse, and I think the competitors were getting antsy, so they went ahead and started the 3rd round. About halfway through the conditions were getting too slippery, so they halted the heat again...bad luck for me because during this longer pause, it gave security a chance to finally do a sweep of the deck and clear away everyone not wearing a wrist band...ummm...I didn't have one. I didn't think to contact anyone this time around regarding whether or not I'd need a pass for photos. So Mr. Security Guard told me and a ton of other people to leave. What an ass too. As I'm putting on my bag and getting my stuff together, he kept telling me to go. What, are you blind buddy? Can't you see I'm in the process of leaving? Even the photographer beside me (who had a wristband) thought the security guard was being rather harsh. Oh well...not like I want to get into an argument with a "toy cop" with an attitude.

Anyways, things turned out fine as the weather never got any better. In fact it ended up raining harder shortly after, but I was indoors eating lunch in town by then, and gladly I was pleased with the shots that I had already gotten. The only problem though is that I didn't get any of the competitors names? Oh well...here's a bunch of nameless photos then...