Miami skateboarders trade tricks for speed at Red Bull Concrete Heats competition

Cheers roared from the crowd encircling the concrete arena as two skateboarders slammed into each other at top speed. Over and over, throughout the event, riders ate pavement as they navigated the winding course as fast as they could.

But for every fall, the riders rose again and made their way across the finish line. All that matters was whoever got there first.

“It’s a death race,” said local skater Theo Marquez. “It’s in the word, no rules.”

Sunday marked a first for Miami, a new style of skateboarding competition hosted at El Portal’s Skatebird Miami skate park. At the Miami Red Bull Concrete Heats event, skaters competed for speed rather than being judged on technical performance and style.

Skateboarders raced on a pump track, a concrete course made up of small hills and turns, first in timed individual qualifying runs and then in one on one bracketed elimination races.

The event was created by Red Bull professional skateboarder Alex Sorgente and held on International Go Skateboarding Day.

“This event is all for fun,” Sorgente said. “At the end everyone is always laughing and smiling when they cross the finish line, no matter if they win or lose”.

Despite the fun atmosphere, Sorgente said, there was some “carnage.”

Twenty-eight skaters entered qualifiers. The winner was Sebastian Bradrach, 14, with a qualifying time at 18.89 seconds. He took home $2,000. Camden Mashore finished second and Dillon Brown placed third.

Sorgente, originally from West Palm Beach and now based in San Diego, said Concrete Heats had been in development for years because they needed to find a safe pump track to hold the event. In this case, safe meant a track big enough for two riders to race without bumping into each other.

“We couldn’t find a venue that was good for it,” he said. “This pump track is perfect because it’s wide and you can get a lot of speed around the whole course.”

The head-to-head races are a change from how skateboarders normally compete — by doing their best tricks. Still, it was hard to resist. Skateboarders were still adding flair to their initial runs, to the cheers of many, but once the bracket races began, the riders’ main focus was on speed.

Sorgente, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics and won the 2016 World Skateboarding Championship in park, said he wanted a new type of event instead of the usual skateboard competitions focused on tricks. This race, he said, was “no pressure. It’s not like you got to go out and land your hardest run with your hardest tricks, you just got to go out and try to go as fast as you can.”

Marquez, one of the competitors, said the races were intense. During one of his heats, Marquez lost contact with his board before crossing the finish line. Officials ruled that the board needed to cross with him for the result to count, forcing a restart.

Because this is such a new style of event, judges weren’t immediately sure how to handle gray areas, but ultimately they decided on a do-over.

Professional skateboarder Nikolai Pionbo, a judge in the event, said seeing younger skaters stand out was the highlight.

“It brought the community together,” he said. “There were little kids having a good time skating. Kids won money. It makes kids want to skate, which is good for Miami.”

After the final race ended, Sorgente said the event surpassed expectations.

“I’m ecstatic,” he said. “It was honestly better than I expected. The racing was top-tier. Guys were going fast, battling each other, passing and stuff. I think everyone had fun too.”

He said he hopes this was only the beginning. “Let’s bring it back,” he said. “We’re going to take it around the whole nation. Wherever there’s a pump track, you can come out and do this.”

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This story was originally published June 25, 2026 at 6:27 PM.