ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

[Paul Howard]

Sunday 19th Father's Day Salem Oregon Soap Box Derby Hill Cascade Slalom Assoc Race #4

This was a fun small 12 entrant Tight slalom with a very technical 50-something dual lane course on perfect asphalt with 2 "gimme" cones, one of which was 3' center to center which was easy to make but psychologically disturbing to look at. Mixed rythem of small and closer and bigger and farther offsets, some "step-overs" , an "S-Curve" and a set of 6' center to center stingers at the end. I had been wanting to do a race like this and finally got to do it.

Thanks to Dave Anderson, John Stryker, Scott Moore, and Brad Jackman for helping with course marking and setting and cleaning the hill. Thanks to Dave Mitchell, Gareth Roe, and Mike Dong for setting up the timing system. Thanks to Pat Chewning, Dan Loveland and Gareth Roe for supplying timers(I'm not sure whose timer or what combination of parts were actually used). Special Thanks to Lorraine Carlstrom for running the timer and recording times and Pete Ingrahm (still out with a knee injury) for cone marshalling.

Highlights included: Mike D's FAST runs, Brad Jackman was the "new guy Darkhorse" with some good solid fast runs, John Stryker going down and doing a huge knee slide(on his pads), Josh Burt persisting through the frustration and not quitting(T/S may not be his game, but a little bigger hybrid course definately IS), Dave Anderson skating T/S better than I've seen him do ever, and my one and only clean run of the course for the whole day.
Skip Marcotte entered this race as his first slalom event ever and pushed through well especially considering this was a fairly advanced course not for beginners (though he's definately not a beginner to downhill). Also Skip won a hand-me-down SubSonic Skateboards prototype and Builtin bearings and some brand new 3DM Avalons as "boards and wheels for the needy" prize since he didn't really have a slalom-specific setup.

Here's the run of final placings:

1) Michael Dong
2) Paul Howard
3) Brad Jackman
4) Dave Anderson
5) Dave Baker
6) Gareth Roe
7) John Stryker
8) Brian Carlstrom
9) Dave Mitchell
10) Scott Moore
11) Josh Burt
12) Skip Marcotte

Thanks again to everyone who showed up and raced, setup, tore-down, cone-headed, spectated, ran timers, etc.... -Paul
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I just dig slalom!