Skateboard Up? Skate BoardUp!
This year Board Up Miami added a fresh element to their action sports festival. Near the lip of the shore where bikini and board short clad observers cheered on amateur and world champion wakeboarders alike, BoardUp erected a 4,000sqft skate park upon sand and gravel. Naturally, the halfpipe was promptly adorned with layers of stickers and spray paint, and the mini ramp and rail just as quickly begat more than a few raspberries. Free to skaters of all ages (welcoming even some pint sized shredders), many prepped for Saturday’s competitions including Beginner/Intermediate, Advanced, and Best Trick.
Taking the advice of a Board Up Miami promoter who encouraged locals at Hollywood’s Stan Goldman skateboarding rink to check out the festival’s temporary skate park, lifelong skater Dayton Chappelear cut up the halfpipe (and his elbow) early Friday afternoon to practice for Saturday. But the sunburned Chappelear wasn’t there to win any competition – or even watch the world-class wakeboarding for that matter (a sport he says he’d love to try, but looks too darn expensive) – he just wants to have fun and skate with his friends.
Though Chappelear says he’d love to see a heavier emphasis on skateboarding at BoardUp next year and hopes the park expands to include a few quarter pipes, more rails, ledges, and a pyramid or two, he’s not interested in the festival commercializing the typically antiestablishment sport. “Skateboarding is always kind of an underground kind of thing, so I don’t want it to be too blown out… too McDonalds if you know what I mean.” One absolute necessity he says: “A water fountain.”
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