A streaking vampire Hooker

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photo: Cortese

I had been wanting to shoot a video at night on the system 2.0 for a long time and what better time to do it then Halloween when everything should be dark and spooky? And talk about scary, the weather channel was calling for a cold front to move through Central Florida the night of the planned shoot. (We all know nothing scares Floridians like cold weather.) And as promised,  the day of the shoot was windy and rainy all day, but I already had 2 cameramen lined up and everything was a go, so I just crossed my fingers hoping.

The sun started to dip under the trees, the skies calmed, and I started to feel less nervous as everything was underway. Ben Horan was the first rider to arrive decked out in overalls. Everyone else followed shortly after, before I knew it the lights were on and the cameras were rolling. We had a little difficulty with lighting not being optimal at the beginning, but were able to work out the bugs. I can’t begin to explain the difficulty of hitting a rail at night but let’s just say, it’s good it was Halloween season and the goal was to be scary. But once everyone got a couple hits in, the fun began.

Nick Taylor, appropriately dressed as Speedy Gonzalez, was speedy to get to work. Josh Kirby had some special powers that night with his Harry Potter outfit, and locked in on the incline repeatedly. Keaton Bowlby came as Waldo, but we all knew where he was: throwing hammers off the incline. After hitting the incline for a long time we moved over to the flat bar fun box. Stacking pumpkins on the edge of the box kept everyone in the Halloween spirit. Matt Hooker had no problem flying across the flat bar with his cape on. Travis Doran came prepared as a baseball player and hit some home runs on the lower box. After everyone spent some time on the fun box, Nick wanted to move the pumpkins over so he could ollie over them.  He some how popped up over the pumpkin while on the box.

Everyone rode late into the night until finally the dreaded bad weather showed up. The rain and high winds shut us down, but not until well after midnight. Big thanks to all the riders, The Projects, Patrick Garrett, Pat Ponakos and everyone else that helped me complete my vision that night. You’re going to have to check out the video a little bit later to see what all went down!