Urethane Revolution by John O'Malley

Author:John O'Malley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The raceway was set into a natural amphitheater—a California arroyo that offered an overhead view of the moonscape terrain as you arrived, enhancing the skatepark’s mystique. It was like a mini moon landing every time you arrived, plus there was this Field of Dreams vibe to it. You know…we built it, and they came.

Carlsbad Skatepark was developed in two phases. For the first phase, three elements were originally planned: the Beginner Area, the North Run and the Canyon Run. These last two did not get built.

Widely photographed, the Beginner Area was an organic surf/ski design that was infectiously fun—like good, consistent, small surf. The North Run design was a high-speed, large-format, long-distance bobsled kind of run. The Canyon Run was to be a naturalistic surf/ski environment. It was actually the cost of fencing these long-form banked turn elements that moved them to the back of the agenda.

I believe that push-track layouts have solved this nicely by offering long-format rides on compressed, circuitous courses.

When you’re building something new, odds are that the tools you need don’t exist, so Jack built ours. The night before we broke ground, he was up all night in his workshop, cutting and welding these new curved stainless-steel blades for the grading equipment, his welding mask lit in strobes by heliarc lightning as he worked.

Jack’s new blades bolted onto the machinery perfectly and worked like a charm, enabling us to cut complex curves into the ground fast and smooth.

The procedure for building a skatepark is unchanged today—you sculpt the earth to the shape you want it, then pave over it. Once we started, construction moved quickly. Jack had put the word out for the best concrete-finishing crew around, and when the guys showed up to pave our moonscape, it touched their artist hearts. Their best work was requested, and superb work was delivered.

One of us slept there at night during that week while the concrete was drying so that nobody would try to ride it before it had hardened.

On the first day that the pavement was dry, Warren Bolster followed his intuition and arrived just as we were about to skate. He documented us riding a skatepark for the first time ever.

A shot for the ages.

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