All feet on decks

COSTA MESA — It’s called the front-pop shove-it late flip, and its steps are only slightly more complicated than its name. But to Carlos Lastra, the skateboard trick means something very simple: a world championship title.

Lastra, who has been skateboarding for seven years, won the amateur finals Saturday in the éS Game of SKATE competition at the OC Fair and Event Center. The contest, one of several in the Maloof Money Cup weekend skate tournament, invites participants to perform difficult stunts on their boards and challenge their competitors to duplicate them.

Lastra, 18, was the last skater left standing at the end of the contest — and the front-pop, etc., turned out to be his winning move.

To pull off the stunt, the skater must leap into the air, spin around once, then tap the board with his or her foot and make it rotate in mid-air before landing. When Lastra’s remaining opponent couldn’t mimic the move, the Long Beach resident took the top prize.

“I’m just stoked to come out here, even if I didn’t win,” said Lastra, who hopes to become a professional skateboarder.

The Maloof Money Cup, which ends today, brings together pro and amateur skaters — male and female — from around the world for a number of different competitions.

The éS Game of SKATE, sponsored by éS Footwear, works like the basketball game of horse; every time a contestant fails to equal his challenger’s last move, he gets a penalty of one letter (S, then K, then A, then T and finally E) until he’s retired on the fifth one.

Lastra and his opponents — Chris Mendes of Redlands and Brent Sowinski of Clearwater, Fla. — each won regional competitions before advancing to the preliminary contest at the fairgrounds Friday, where they beat out 21 other skaters from around the world and advanced to the final round. Each contestant got an all-expenses-paid stay in Orange County for the weekend.

Today, the Maloof Money Cup will continue with the éS Game of SKATE finals for pro skaters, as well as finals for the men’s and women’s Pro Street competitions and the men’s Pro Vert competition. The amateurs are finished, but Don Brown, the senior vice president of marketing for Sole Technology, a sponsor of the event, said the pros aren’t always the most impressive.

“You’ll sometimes find the amateurs are even better than some of these pro guys, because the pros haven’t been practicing tricks all day long,” he said. “Sometimes, with kids, this is all they do.”

Sowinski, 18, said he would love to move up to the professional ranks.

“It’s the greatest,” he said. “You get paid to flip a piece of wood around.”

WHAT: Maloof Money Cup

WHERE: OC Fair and Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa

WHEN: Women’s Pro Street finals, 2 p.m.; éS Game of SKATE pro finals, 5:30 p.m.; men’s Pro Street finals, 7 p.m.

WHO: Some of the best skateboarders in the world like Shaun White, Andrew Reynolds and Bob Burnquist will be there.

ONLINE: www.maloofmoneycup.com

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.