DamnAm Louisville 2025

Winner’s circle

Words and photos by RancerStank

When you want to be great, you must grind. When you want to be the best, you must love what you’re doing. When you want to live a dream, you must go for broke. This aura was overflowing and running down the metal walls of Sprak skatepark in Louisville, Kentucky. One thing could get the top talent of amateur skating descend upon this midwestern park, the Legendary DamnAm.

Before the contest, Milwaukee’s best and Four Season’s own, Mitch Schmidt arrived to transform the center section of Sprak. He showed his grind for the week it took to complete the build. He went out of state to film, then still made it back to town for the contest. His ramps with Samio Rail Co. rails quickly became the focus of people’s runs.

Cris Rosas warming up as our dawg Mitch Schmidt does what he does best.

Skaters started filtering in the week before the contest. Nicaraguan skater Silvio Farinas arrived that Saturday and basically became part of the city’s skate scene. He came to skate and film as much as he could, spending all his time at the parks and in the streets for the love of skating.

Peruvian skater Jean Victorio showed up on the doorstep of Sprak as well. It turns out he rolled into town with only a few bucks in his pocket, and had no place to stay. Running on fumes with only hope to cash in, he helped clean the park in exchange for sleeping on the crash pad. He went all in, to have the DamnAm change his life. Sprak quickly made him an honorary team skater.

Gabi Lavallee launching a crispy backside flip

By Friday registration and practice, Sprak was packed with absolute rippers. The Tampa team came in strong. Gabi Lavallee and Myles Booker were proving the future at SPoT was bright. However, Brazil was the top representative for the Saturday qualifiers, with Carlos Garcia and Lucas Aquino taking the top spots straight to the finals.

Silvio and Jean V. both made it through to the semifinals, but eyes quickly moved to Tyler Kirshenbaum. He was in the middle of the pack for the quals, but he one upp’ed Camden Mashore’s NBD frontside flip over the wall ride channel with a frontside heelflip to win him best trick. Then it was time for a little basketball while winding down for the evening.

Sunday brought phenomenal performances in the semifinals. Locals Noah Long and Jake Clemmons found the end of their DamnAm runs here. Along with Silvio, they struggled to bring together their fantastic trick selections. Several familiar faces laid down solid safety runs, but couldn’t get the big tricks in their second runs. It started to look like Keanu Brown, or Quinn Harbin could walk away with it.

With the finals now upon the group, Jean V. surprised us all by stepping up his run to include every flip into grind in a single run, earning him 9th. The battle between Quinn and Keanu seemed to shift into the finals with both putting together impressive runs. The judges were torn between Quinn’s big 180 switch grinds on the hubba and Keanu’s smooth style flipping into rails. Quinn just edged him out of third.

Tyler Kirshenbaum with a frontside heel to help clinch the victory.

The break from semifinals seemed to only help Carlos with him throwing down a flawless second run, but it was Tyler who came through on his final run. Not only did he land every trick, but he stepped up everything he had been doing all weekend. A backside hardflip followed up by a frontside flip over the pyramid really set the tone early on. It was just bangers from there. In the end it was Tyler’s grind, love of skating, and willingness to go for broke allowed him to sneak up from the middle of the pack to take home both best trick and the number one spot in the Louisville DamnAm at Sprak.