The best things you can do is get a really wide angle lens and a good flash. I've done some skating shoots and have always wanted to shoot wider than I had available.

With the D80 you'll want to manually pre-focus and shoot. The D80 doesn't have focus tracking so if the skater is coming towards (or away from) you a fast rate -- you'll have to refocus as fast as you can tap your finger on the shutter button.

You can also slow down the shutter speed and shoot with the rear sync flash and go for some motion blur action shots (at night). Play around.

Watch Fuel TV and see what they are doing with video and apply it to what you want to do.

Other than those few things, just get out and shoot a lot!

mbb