The 2012 Santa Gnarbara Outlaw
Max Capps, with his signature California condor swoop. Photo: Bandy.
The stage is set—a place many call the “American Riviera”—a place rich in history; and more importantly for us, skateboarding history. The Santa Barbara area has been a skateboarding mecca for over thirty-five years. Arguably, some of the first longboard skateboards were made right here back in the 1970s by Tom Sims of Sims Skateboards. Not to mention the area being the birthplace of Powell Peralta, Shorty’s, Skate Zone, Church of Skatan—the list goes on. But I’m not here to play some history blowhard, I writing this today in order to tell you about my experience at a rad skateboarding race that went down just a few weeks back—a downhill event titled the 2012 Santa Gnarbara Outlaw.
King of Clermont, 2012
Bustin teammates, Jonas Richter and Will Royce, coming in hot. Photo: Tseng.
Downhill and Florida—words that the average skater would not think to use in the same sentence. In a state where the majority of the elevation is at sea level—some even below—most would be surprised to find a sanctioned downhill race with over 150 competitors from all over the US as well as 4 different countries. Skaters from Canada, Norway, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil were in attendance for a weekend of shredding. Contrary to what some might think, Florida’s downhill skateboarding scene is thriving and the King Of Clermont event is on its third year running. Read More
The 2012 San Pedro Shred!
Let's do this! Photo: Balls.
We’ve been wanting to throw a Wheelbase event for a very long time now, and have had this dope spot in San Pedro all sussed out for when the time was right—it was just a matter of picking the ideal moment when everybody would be in town and up for a day’s session. The recent Agenda tradeshow, held in Long Beach, CA on January 5 & 6, provided the perfect window of opportunity to make this particular event a reality. We seized the day, and called up our closest allies from around the industry and pitched our idea of having an event that was focused on a slide jam, included a session at the legendary Channel Street skatepark, and an after-event BBQ. Everybody was stoked on the concept so, just two weeks before it was all slotted to go down, we launched the San Pedro Shred! What is so radical about the whole deal is that even though it was kind of an unproven location and organized at such short notice, we received some serious support and everything ended up running as smoothly as a pair of silky-pink-panties. Read More
A Halloween Slide Jammy
"Super Mario" Pilloni boosts up and over—one step closer to saving Princess Daisy. Photo: Vincent Price.
The proliferation of “slide jams”, like this Halloween Slide Jam and others, are perfect examples of an exciting paradigm shift in skateboarding. While some in skateboarding focus on Primetime Jockfests, we like to focus on small events generated by, and revolving around, local shred communities.
Earthwing’s Broadway Bomb Tech Slide Jam
A top of the road perspective of the jam. Photo: Brian Babish.
We’ve all been seeing more and more companies jumpin’ on the “skate everything” bandwagon. Guess what? Earthwing has been skateboarding everything since the beginning. No fakin’—just straight-up skateboarding for, and by, skateboarders. Many may not know this, but Earthwing Skateboards has influenced a lot of what’s going on right now. That said, when Earthwing’s Steve Kong hit us up to tell us they were throwing a slide jam the day after The Broadway Bomb, there was no doubt that we’d be there to show our support. So on Sunday October 9th, 2011 we were in attendance, and what a jammy-jammer of a good time we had. Read More
