Puerto Vallarta DIY Festival
Photos by Olga Aguilar
Words Dirk Slasher
Puerto Vallarta is located on Mexico’s pacific coast in the state of Jalisco, within this resort town the local skate community celebrated this past December 6,7 and 8 the first DIY “Festival” a national contest that brought skaters from all parts of the country. The preexisting park “Parque del Estadio” was revamped with the help of locals, and sponsors like Build Ramps not Walls making it a mix of street and tranny of different dimensions and new pool coping on some parts.
On Friday the Amigo’s of Skate Crime Skateboards had the Crime at the Ramp mini ramp jam which kicked of the festivities for the coming weekend , locals had the upper hand on the lines but the new coping and river rock stones on the Skull extension was a challenge which only brought more energy and stoke to the jam ,
Mexico city’s Jhossan Rodriguez took the Throne for the evening .
Second day of the weekend started with qualifying runs , Kids, Women’s and open divisions were held.
Third day finals took place amongst the humidity and heat this did not stop anybody on the contrary the flow of beverages was present at all times, the local minimarts made bank for those days.
Kids finals took place early in the morning to avoid the heat , a mix of local and foreign mini shredders took the stage to pump up the crowd with their determination and to show their love for the board.
1st Piojo Munoz
2nd Uriel Arrona (PV)
3rd Paulo Franco
Women finals came around mid day , as heat levels started to rise this did not stop the girls taking the course as all the finalists were demonstrating their unique style from street technicians to the bowl/ transition slashers , this came to show that girls skateboarding in Mexico is alive and growing and it was definitely seen with a good turn out of riders for this contest.
1st Itzel Granados (Mexico City)
2nd Jacqueline Cruz ( Torreon)
3rd Nina Aguilar (Mexico/Bellingham WA)
Open Finals came thru the end of mid day towards the evening , a big turn out of skaters made finals difficult to judge with all styles and levels from the seasoned veterans to the new kids on the block who were slaying non stop.
1st Atomick – Alexei Navarro (Mexico City)
2nd Erick Silva
3rd Emilio Fernandez (@shoreskatepark @mexicodiy)
Thank you to Build Ramps not walls ( instag: build_ramps_not_walls) the local skaters and all the sponsors who in one way or another helped for the Revamp of the park and making the Puerto Vallarta DIY contest a first for the local community. long live Mexico DIY and the world wide skate army!
Carlos Padilla ( instag: carlospadillaa) one of the main organizers for the event gave a brief story on how the park was done and to show the essence of the DIY spirit is world wide .
DS: How did the you guys start with the remodeling of the Park?
CP: The skate park already had some small quarter pipes done , on the first revamp we built the mini ramp a small corner pocket and the big quarter pipe wall AKA “ La Blondie” and on the second phase 2.0 we built a new taller corner pocket , there was small fun box and small pyramid bank in the center of the park which we removed and place what we call the worm which is a long worm like hump.
DS: Did the municipal Government give you permission and aid for the new additions of the park?
CP: Yes they did , we had meetings and worked together with the Department of sports , we presented our floor plans and the idea we had for the park and having the justification to have it done because we were planing on this national contest .
DS: Did the municipality help you with money for the new phase of the park?
CP: No they did not give us any money , (jokingly) they did give us moral support ! haha! They did facilitate us with building permits and licenses, no materials were given by their part, they did help out with some labor workers and some heavy equipment.
DS: So the majority of materials and labor was given by the Puerto Vallarta skateboard community and other near by counties.
CP: Yes and we also made a go fund me and got our financial resources , we also got help from other sponsors and folks with loaning or donating hammers and other miscellaneous equipment.
DS: Will this be the first national contest at this park?
CP: with this magnitude yes ! previously there we only small local contests, but with this contest we wanted to make it big and have people come from different parts of the country , social media played a big part to get the word out , this helped out big time !
DS: last words, shout outs?
CP: Well none of this would be done with the hands that helped built the park , the artist collective that gave color to the park with their murals an paintings , the whole skate crew that were involved one way or another with labor, money , food , water etc. also the government because they gave us the space to build this park and make it a better park for the future.
MEXICO DIY built and finished a lot of the concrete, and made the pool copings. Emilio (Mexico DIY founder) was everyday there working every day, special thanks to him for th hard work and keeping it together
MEXICO DIY built and finished a lot of the concrete, and made the pool copings. Emilio (Mexico DIY founder) was everyday there working, it would be cool to give some credits.