The Bum Rush Tour Sneaks Up On Skimboarders in Upham Beach Florida
24 year-old Stephen Bradford, from just up the road in Indian Rocks Beach, Fla.,
caught the judges’ eyes with his style, enthusiasm and energy.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (July 15, 2012) – After kicking off the 2012 tour with three stops in Hawaii and two in California, the unique ambush surf contest came back to its home state of Florida today for stop number six. The tour, put on by Sun Bum, a sun care company out of Cocoa Beach, will now head up the East Coast for the last four unscheduled and unannounced tour stops.
What makes the tour unique, you ask? There are no qualifiers, no entry fees, no applications, and you don’t know when or where it’s going to happen. What makes it even sweeter is 20 minutes after the horn sounds, one surfer will be called out of the water, showered with cheap champagne, and given a big fat check for one thousand dollars.
But today’s contest wasn’t typical. With little to no waves on the Gulf Coast today, the Sun Bum crew decided to hold a skimboard contest after seeing a group of kids shredding the Upham Beach shoreline. The winner, 24 year-old Stephen Bradford, from just up the road in Indian Rocks Beach, Fla., caught the judges’ eyes with his style, enthusiasm and energy.
“We had about seven skimmers on the beach trading off on the ankle-high shore break,” said Event Director Dustin Smith. “It was cool watching them boost air even off the tiniest of waves. Unfortunately, sometimes skimboarders get left out of the whole surfing world, so it was pretty cool to give them some much-deserved love.”