ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

Well, here's the deal,

I spoke with the Summerville Parks And Recreation Department and they are hip to an outlaw race at the Gahagan Sports Complex on SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8. They will gladly close off the parking lot and we will have unobstructed access to all the asphalt. There will be a baseball tournament the same day, but it will be in another portion of the facility and our race will not impact on their parking. So, we might even get a few spectators. I hope this weekend is agreeable to everyone. It's three weeks after La Costa and the KFC race, one week before the Carrasco/Evans weekend on the 15th and a month before the Dixie Cup.


Down the course ("down" being relative, of course.)

There will be two races as time and stamina permits:

1. Dual Hybrid of about 40-50 cones (6 to 9 foot spacing with moderate offsets)

2. Dual Tight slalom. (Think about my course at the Down Here Retreat Outlaw, only on a MUCH shallower grade.) Off the ramps, tight, wiggling and to the finish line in under 12 seconds.


Up the course. The runout has a little "loop," but the course is so shallow that run out speed will not be an issue.

Start Ramps
Timing System


I've got one start ramp ready to go. I'll get a second one built with no problem before race day.

I'm thinking we'll start a little bit later but not too late. The courses will be open for practice at 8:00 AM. That's early but "practice" will be until 10:30. Don't feel like you have to be there at 7:59 to get in two runs. There will be plenty of time for practice.

I want to start a little later so the Georgia and North Carolina guys can actually drive in on Sunday morning if they are so disposed. A 10:30 start means anyone in Statesville/Raleigh/Atlanta OR Dublin can leave about 6:00 and get to the race in plenty of time. Of course, anyone coming in Saturday or earlier can sleep in a little on Sunday and still have plenty of time to ride. The DC guys have already expressed an interest in getting into town early to catch a few waves at Folly Beach.

If we start at 10:30, then here's the racing schedule:

10:30 - Qualifying
11:30 - Commence Dual Elimination (Allow two hours)
1:30 - Reset for Tight slalom(use hybrid qualifiying for seeding)
2:00 - Tight Slalom Practice
3:00- Tight Slalom Elimination
4:00 - DONE. Everybody can get out of town and be home at a reasonable hour.

(Of course, I hope everyone realizes this is not carved in stone? Attendance will have a lot to do with how long each item will last.)


Setting a dual tight course is fun on this surface. It's brand new asphalt and being a parking lot there is no crown.


I'm not even going to go into issues like "accommodations." Hell, there are six motels at the Summerville interstate exit and Charleston has something like 8,500 rooms. Go to Priceline and get one. Of course, as everyone knows gasoline prices are plunging and that only makes travel easier.

Getting to Summerville is easy (take Exit 199 off of I-26 and you're there.) Getting to the park will be a little bit trickier. It's off in the woods and takes a good set of directions to find. I guarantee you, though, that if you get to Dorchester County that I'll get you to the race!

It's hard to rip something off of Mapquest and keep it legible for online display. Here, though, is an attempt to at least give an idea of how to find the baseball park. The reason I'm doing it this way is there is no street address for the park and thus someone unfamiliar with the area (meaning everyone but me) wouldn't know how to do a search and get a map.

So, here it is:



Also, here I'll repeat the written instructions just in case it's too blurry to read on a print out:

• Take U.S. 17A To The Intersection With Richardson Ave.
• Turn EAST on to Richardson Avenue
• Take Richardson Avenue to the intersection With Owens Dr.
• Take A Right Turn onto Owens
• Follow Owens around the left-hand bend at the National Guard Armory
• Go To Stop Sign At Intersection With Boundary Street
• Turn Right Onto Boundary Street
• Gahagan Sports Complex Will Be On The Right
• Go Through The Front Parking Lot To The Access Road To The Maintenance Shed.
• Race Site Is Past Maintenance Shed Adjacent To The Back Two BaseBall Fields

Getting To Summerville:

If coming from North or West, Take Interstate 26 EAST to Exit 199. US 17A South is Main Street Summerville. It's about 4 miles from the Interstate to Richardson Avenue

If coming from the South, take Interstate 95 to Exit 53 in Walterboro, South Carolina. Follow road signs to US 17A NORTH. From Walterboro to Summerville is about 28 miles. Be careful in Walterboro: after exiting the Interstate and heading into the town, there is a stop light where you must turn RIGHT to stay on US 17A. If you miss your turn, you'll end up on US Hwy 15 heading out into the country.

Once in Summerville, watch the street signs for the intersection with Main Street (US Hwy 17A) and Richardson Ave. It's in the middle of town next to the Square and Town Hall sits at the intersection.

Oh, my cel is 843-469-1406 for the inevitable lost and wayward traveler who forgot to print all this out and put it in the car!

One other thing. Depending on turn out, I'm still hip to riding the Bus Depot Friday or Saturday night or both. Again, I can't stress how Outlaw it would be. There's also the chance the shed would be closed for an event. If I get downtown between now and the end of the month I'll try and go by the Visitor's Center to see if there's anything scheduled.

Hope to see everyone on the 8th!

WT

P.S. I do hope everyone likes this spot. If so, then we could end up having a REAL Winter Southern Slalom Series: Atlanta, Summerville, Dublin, Athens (if Trade Street is still skateable,) Statesville, Winston Salem (Hobby Park and Centre Park Blvd), Fountainhead in Virginia and now the Tennessee guys are racing.

It's hard to rip something off of Mapquest and keep it legible for online display. Here, though, is an attempt to at least give an idea of how to find the baseball park. The reason I'm doing it this way is there is no street address for the park and thus someone unfamiliar with the area (meaning everyone but me) wouldn't know how to do a search and get a map.

So, here it is:



Also, here I'll repeat the written instructions just in case it's too blurry to read on a print out:

• Take U.S. 17A To The Intersection With Richardson Ave.
• Turn EAST on to Richardson Avenue
• Take Richardson Avenue to the intersection With Owens Dr.
• Take A Right Turn onto Owens
• Follow Owens around the left-hand bend at the National Guard Armory
• Go To Stop Sign At Intersection With Boundary Street
• Turn Right Onto Boundary Street
• Gahagan Sports Complex Will Be On The Right
• Go Through The Front Parking Lot To The Access Road To The Maintenance Shed.
• Race Site Is Past Maintenance Shed Adjacent To The Back Two BaseBall Fields

Getting To Summerville:

If coming from North or West, Take Interstate 26 EAST to Exit 199. US 17A South is Main Street Summerville. It's about 4 miles from the Interstate to Richardson Avenue

If coming from the South, take Interstate 95 to Exit 53 in Walterboro, South Carolina. Follow road signs to US 17A NORTH. From Walterboro to Summerville is about 28 miles. Be careful in Walterboro: after exiting the Interstate and heading into the town, there is a stop light where you must turn RIGHT to stay on US 17A. If you miss your turn, you'll end up on US Hwy 15 heading out into the country.

Once in Summerville, watch the street signs for the intersection with Main Street (US Hwy 17A) and Richardson Ave. It's in the middle of town next to the Square and Town Hall sits at the intersection.

Oh, my cel is 843-469-1406 for the inevitable lost and wayward traveler who forgot to print all this out and put it in the car!

Don't you love small towns?

I just got a call from the Town Of Summerville. They zapped me. Originally I wanted to do my race the weekend of October 8 but the town said the spot would be available October 1.

Well, they called me this morning. You know what I'm going to say:

The race is now OFFICIALLY to be held Sunday, October 8.

The announcement has been edited to reflect the new date.

My spot really is at the mercy of the local Dixie Youth softball program and they rearranged their tournament schedule.

Same itinerary and schedule as published, just a week later.

I feel like I should apologize, but this was nothing I could control. Ya' gotta go with what the town says.

I hope the weather continues to be as good as it is now. Hope to see everyone in a two and a half weeks!

10-day forecast for Summerville, South Carolina on October 8:

Sun
Oct 8
Partly Cloudy
80°/59°
Chance of rain: 10%

It's looking good for next weekend. Not a drop in the forecast all week with highs not getting over 80.

The course is set:



The ramps are built:



All that's left is to show up and ride!

Oh, one thing. Keep this little geometric design in mind when you run the dual course around a curve on Sunday:



When you run the course (especially with someone in the other lane) you're gonna say to yourself, "what the F&^%K?" Then you'll remember this little picture in your head and it'll all make sense!

Just so everyone will know, the course is 48 cones spaces out over 404 feet, medium at the top, a few elongated offsets and a little wiggler at the bottom. Nothing to complicated as I don't know what kind of newbie attendance we'll have. Anyone with a modicum of slalom experience should be able to compensate with some strong pump and get some good acceleration.

And Sunday is still looking like this:

High
78
Low
57°F
Partly Cloudy
Precip: 20%

Have fun this weekend.

See ya in Statesville!

Nice to see that Tway clicked the shutter around one of the cones I DIDN'T hit!

Thanks.

Fatboy's Beware! There's a crew coming Friday night!

The first slalom race in Summerville, South Carolina since 1979 went off well today. After great weather forecasts for three weeks, it started to go downhill Thursday and there was a prediction of 60% chance of rain.

Well, it rained Sunday morning as we got about 4 minutes of a sprinkle that was followed a couple of times by a minute or less. It took longer for the start ramps to dry than the road! By 10:30 it was a gorgeous day for skating.

I want to thank the THREE skaters who took a chance on me and made the trip in spite of the miserable weather predictions. Ron Olsen from Georgia, North Carolina's Jim Mather and Keith and Michelle Hollien all show and we had a really good time.

We went ahead and qualified on the dual hybrids and there were no surprises:

Keith - 19.248
Ron - 20.829
WT - 22.689
Jim -26.272

The dual eliminations shook out according to qualifying with Keith's best time of the day only .1 faster than his qualifying time. Racing Ron and Jim was a lot of fun and watching Ron get a little faster on each run was encouraging.

As you can imagine we got done quick but the day wasn't over. Everyone wanted to skate so the courses were just opened up and everyone rode. Jim worked on his arm mechanics (which really improved during the day) and Keith spend a better part of three hours just coming of the ramp repeatedly trying to improve his reaction time.

About an hour after finishing the duals we reset the course into a dual tight at about 6-foot spacing. Again it was just a jam session with everyone playing with wheel duros, bushings, stances, starts and style. Right as the duals ended the laptop battery died and I wasn't motivated to get out the generator, so the tight slalom times aren't recored. But I do remember Keith's fast time @ 12.7, Ron layed down a 13.5, my fast time on the day was 14.4 and Jim got in a 15.1. Jim's time also came down a lot from his initial run in the mid 17s. Knocking off a full two seconds was progress.

I'm not going to say anything about my spot as I'll let the others post their opinions. I will say this, though: everyone is very hip to racing here again after the Dixie Cup. I'm thinking that probably December 9 will work well. I'm only suggesting it as the concensus is this is a good spot for racing.

Oh, one other thing. The Summerville P&R Director came by to check us out. He doesn't work Sundays but made a special effort to see what was going on. Although attendance was light he was really impressed with the skating and the whole "outlaw" setup with ramps, timers, tables, chairs, canopies and skateboards scattered everywhere. He assured me that after Little League Season (late November) we can have that spot any day until April.

So some winter racing is definetely in the cards.

P.S. RonO shot video, so it should be up soon.

I want to thank Wesley for putting on the race. I had a great time. I really like his ramps especially the handles. He used pipes in the 2"x4" and they work great. His spot is pretty sweet. It has a nice little hill with room to set various types of courses and there is ample space to turn aroud. Any place I do not have to foot drag is my kind of spot.
Wesley said something about doing another race before the end of the year. I will be there.

Keith, Teams Radikal & Oust.

Keith,

Thanks for coming. It was a fun day.

As for the ramps, I think I've figured out a way to correct the issue we had with the front lifting. As soon as I get the time to do the work, I'll post an update.

Definetely count on a race Saturday, December 9. I spoke with Ron and he's of the opinion the later start works well. This allows locals who don't want to stay in a room the chance to drive in. The same really goes for you. Leave at 6:6:30 and get in around 10-10:30. Four hours up, skate all day, four hours home and back by 10:00.

See ya' in Atlanta (I think . . . I'm still hoping this works out.)

Since RonO ain't gonna do it, I guess I have to!

Ron put together a neat little video of the SOS race. It'll give everyone a good notion of the spot and its condusiveness to futire racing. When you go to the site, click on the top link for "Summerville Outlaw."

http://65.6.149.248/

Thanks again, Ron!

Hey WT,
what's up with the race in December? Any idea on dates yet?

Jim,

We're gonna race on Saturday, December 9.

I'll make a wing-ding post about it over the weekend, but I had to confirm something before I set a definite date.

Hollien told me a couple of weeks ago that he has a conflict that weekend, but I'm scheduling the race because of some mitigating circumstances for that weekend. It's still three weeks away and who knows? Things might change for Keith.

One other thing: baseball, softball and SERTOMA football are over, so I'll schedule this one for SATURDAY instead of Sunday. I'll probably keep the same itinerary, though, for people who want to drive in early morning.

SOS!!!

Barring some big dealbreaker, I'm in.

Folks, this is a great venue, Ricky Byrd start ramps, and safe hill, no cars, a great easy runout.

Let's see if 100 will fit that hill!

Ron

Thanks Wes.
You can count me in!!

If you get a good enough turn-out... maybe we can adjust the course and run cones on Sunday with different off-sets or something.

I'm looking forward to it!

Hey,

I live here. We can skate as much as anyone wants! The park is pretty much empty for the winter so skating Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday, Monday or whatever is cool by me.

It's no skin off my nose to ride 2.5 miles over and skate some more!!!

I thought of something. I figured out a way to illustrate the SLOPE of this spot.

Look all the way to the left and you can see where the road is at the same level with the playing field. As the parking lot, though, sweeps to the right, you can see the grade compared to the embankment. Of course, the outfield behind the yellow-padded fence is level. So that should answer any questions about what to expect at the December 9 race:



You can also get a good scale of the length of the spot. Like I said, we set a 400-foot course in October with plenty of run out, slope and good speed.

I will do an announce RIGHT Sunday, but right now I wanted to get my montage online. I happy with the way it turned out.