Do not adjust your set. This is not another reprint of vintage photographs. Let me explain. A couple of years ago I sold an old Santa Cruz Jammer on eBay to a woman for a modest price. I was curious as to who in the world would want this semi-generic and not too popular deck. In settling the transaction I learned that it was intended as a birthday present. I did some calculations and jokingly asked what 40 year old skateboard collector was she buying it for. She replied it was for her husband, who was indeed 40, and still skated several times a week!
A half a year later I was making plans to visit my mother in-law at her new pad in Florida. I remembered that I shipped that Jammer to Fla, so I fired off an email enquiring where an Oregon transplant could find some cement bowls to skate while visiting the town of Sarasota. (This was in the days before Sarasota’s new skate park. As fate would have it, Birthday boy (man) David Bonnell worked down the road a stretch, and agreed to session with me in Northport, a one horse, strip mall town with a skate park across the street from the police station. Of course, I took my camera.
Ok so the prints look old because my camera was flaking out on me. Light leaks and possibly baked film stock affected the processing. Definitely not bad exposures and general ineptitude.
Ah, the joys of skateboarding and instant camaraderie with those you can meet from opposite shores and different heydays. David can, and will ride with anyone. He hails from the late 70’s era of skateboarding and at one time was sponsored. He’ll do handplants, footplants, and airs on one of his many classic re-issued decks. He skates the parks and has been known to make the Gator Alley run for secret sessions in well guarded pools. If you find yourself skating in Florida and hear some urethane barking out a nice Berttleman slide on a bank or in the bowl, introduce yourself to David. Tell him Randy sends his best, and ask him about Florida’s underground downhill scene. No, really. There is one. Skate cars and stand-ups included.
North Port. As far as a park goes it’s just Ok. The main focus is an extended street area that is you basic back and forth kind of thing with humps and a rail in the center. The opposing sides are banked and trannied to various heights 5-8 feet high if I recall correctly.
One section on a side is a little higher and has vert, but for the most part it’s all pretty mild. One thing you don’t usually see in a course like this is a center trannied peninsula. There is a little too much flat otherwise. Team Payne also included a small left handed square bowl with metal coping in one section of the park. The trannies are smooth, but the design is a little kooky. The high side banks at the top and doesn’t go to vert. Another bummer is the fact that the deep end doesn’t have a waterfall from the shallow. Instead, the flat bottom is all level and the deep end is made from extensions. Essentially, it doesn’t get deeper, just taller, if that makes sense. It’s still rideable and fun, but instead of doing it up right it seems like they got lazy or wanted to save money and made it the easy way.
UPDATE: I’ve since learned this is probably the result of the local water table. You can’t dig these too deep without hrisking long term headaches.
The park is free to use but requires pads and helmet, and is usually supervised. You’ll have to sign in too. Bring some water because the water fountain is anemic and Florida is hot as fudge… A bathroom and food are available at the big grocery store about a half a mile away. Perhaps it’s a Publix. I’ve got memories of Publix ingrained in my subconscious from visiting my grandparents in Florida as child. For some reason I really thought the name was cool. It’s funny, the things that stick with you as you grow older.
I’ve been there twice since the millenium. One the last time on my way out of town I met David in a little town called Lake Mary. They had another small Team Payne skate park that had one of the weakest street areas I’ve ever seen, but it was fun to goof around on. It’s basically a narrow track that you make your way around and hit the obstacles on the way. It seems like it’s made for little kids or beginners, which is fine. The bowl is bigger than Northport’s but it suffers from the same lack of waterfall in the flat syndrome. Someone needs to come up with a better name for that. Waterflat? Upside down helmet? I don’t know. Present on the day I was there was a gentleman named Tony Misiano who was visiting his parents or grandparents, I can’t remember. He lives in New York though, and it just goes to show you that there aren’t very many degrees of separation between skaters of a certain age. I was going to send Tony V2#2 of Skate and Annoy since he was in it, but we got a note from John who had gotten a copy from Steve Grover, saying he sent his copy to Tony. Grover ran into Fudala at the Oregon Trifecta. Blah blah blah. Lake Mary requires pads and a helmet, and costs a couple of bucks.
Epilogue. These photos are a couple of years old (2002 or so), but I‘m getting ready to return to Florida for my once-every-other year visit, and I figured it would be nice to have this stuff posted. Sarasota has a brand new skate park that is supposed to be really nice. Rumor has it that city hall is trying to muck things up by adding a café and other non essential junk that would force them to make it a pay to play facility. Bummer. I’ll let you know when I get back. Once again, this is not the quintessential Florida scene report, so maybe you should send one in.
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