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© Skate Scene Media Click on a photo for a closer look |
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With an early Saturday morning already in full swing we headed down to La Costa which is pretty much Carlsbad California for those of you not in the know. Taking place was a downhill slalom race where skaters from just about every stripe were there to race. |
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We certainly are not experts in slalom racing ... not even in the least, yet when the event has names that most skaters recognize like Duane Peters, Dave Hackett, Steve Olsen and others, you have to take notice. The race from an outsiders point of view takes place on a fairly steep hill, guys and gals take off from a launch pad of sorts, weave in and out of cones that go all the way down the hill. If you are thinking, so what, big deal .... well you are wrong. This we can say for sure about the day and what we saw. |
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Once the racers comes out of the gate they quickly begin to pick up speed and by now they have dodged in and out of a dozen cones. The sound of a specially formulated race wheel makes a crisp gripping sound (what is a gripping sound .... mmm, you just have to be there) with the motion that almost seems like a pool skater on flatland. By the time the racer gets toward the bottom of the hill they are going about 30+mph. Everything has that fun/risk factor, why else would someone do it -thrills of victory and danger put together. From what we could see is that if someone was to eat it, you would get severed up hard, kinda like falling off a moped at about 30+mph. Rather than talk about the fine points of slalom -because we are not fully in the know of all of it, check out the photos you see assembled here. |
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There
are plenty of websites out there with info about this aspect of
skateboarding and the special boards used. Here are a few to get you
started: |
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