For those of you who don’t receive the Protest Site’s Facebook Updates, maybe you need to push the LIKE Button on the site, or maybe were just too busy being crazy the past couple weeks, we’re gonna give you the low down on Andy Anderson’s trip to Costa Mesa to compete in the Damn Am Contest held at the Volcom Warehouse in Costa Mesa.
Andy is about to turn a big 17 years old next month and is trying to get his name out there in more places than just the lower mainland. Andy has been on a skateboarding rampage for many years, he’s actually been skating for over 12 years and he’s been hanging out and learning from Hippie Mike since he was 7. Andy has won his fair share of competitions and awards in many different categories and styles of skateboarding over the years. He can place in a street contest, a pool or coping bowl, the original old school bowls, or even at Freestyle Contests, and all on his custom old school shaped deck and setup. He took home the prestigious King of the Bowls Trophy at age 15 and won the King of Surrey Plaque the same year. Last year he got around a little more and participated in tons of different events and seemed to win some dollar bills at most of the ones he showed up to. So it was time for Andy Anderson to head down to Cali and compete against a whole new crowd of Amateur Skateboarders that raise the bar to a whole new level – The Damn Am.
Andy had a great time down there and got to meet, and make friendships with lots of other amazing skaters around the same age as him, like Curren Caples and Louie Lopez, who happened to place 1st and 2nd in the contest. Andy had a killer run in the qualifiers, flawless of course, and the crowd was super stoked on his unique style and technical tricks. But unfortunately Andy didn’t make the cut of the 30 people out of 200 who made it to the Finals. He did however get his whole run filmed and published by Nigel Alexander and even did a small interview afterwards. The classic part of everything is Andy had himself registered on his profile as Andre Anderso and now he keeps getting all this publicity with that name on it, hilarious… but in the actual videos it states his real name. He represented well down there for all of his sponsors, including Skull Skates, Monke Hardware, The Dry Spot, Vans, Kilian Clothing, and of course Protest Skateboards, and the experience that Andy got from his first “real contest” is irreplaceable. Now with the knowledge of what to expect from a competition in this setting, Andy will attempt again to qualify at the Damn Am in Atlanta coming up in a few weeks. Top 12 go to Tampa.
We wish him the best of luck.
Until then have a look at some of the publicity that came out of this attempt
http://skatematic.com/skateboard-news/308781/andy-anderson-at-costa-mesa-damn-am/
http://skateparkoftampa.com/skater/5729/Andy_Anderson/?T=Results