(this is a summary of the current slalom revival)

On 2/20/2002 john gilmour wrote in from 151.204.xxx.xxx:

Slalom's third coming. California 1970's-80's, Europe 1980's- 1990's, the USA and Europe 2000's and beyond.

I had been slaloming with CMC and Pre-school rider for years as cross training for Alpine snowboarding. I never stopped slaloming from 1975 or so- I always thought it was the fastest low impact workout there was. Also the least expensive form of exercise other than swimming.

But the European competition scene had slowed since Jani stopped publishing "Slalom!" Magazine. I had times of no computer- so I wasn't writing anymore "Slalom!" articles.

It seemed European slalom contests were pretty much constant since the late 80's and there would be a lot of smaller local contests in each country. Every so often there would be a really large contest which for some unknown reason was always followed by a huge lull in contests. There was this huge contest in Prague (1987?) that filled a huge athletic stadium to capacity and a lull after that.

Later the Swiss were gleaning a new generation of slalomers in a great slalom town with impossible spelling -Hombrechtikon ,that was started by a snowboarding club. They had some great Competitions that were very well organized.

In 1993 we had the Olympic organized games- a big contest...... though the courses were lacking in speed. And again a big lull. In 1995 the French Open was held with 7 slalom competitions... and again a lull. Smaller comps in Europe and comps in Latvia every year....leaving me to wonder - when will be the next large European competition?

It seemed the bigger comps intimidated people from throwing another event. I hoped this would not happen in the USA.

I saw the WLAC comps going off and I had seen Beau Brown race before in the 1993 event. Beau won one of the WLAC events ...but it was the prize of a Turner and racing with Chris Chaput who interested me in coming out to WLAC since Chris was an old school freestyler. Seeing video of Chris slaloming on his site prompted me to come. Ed Economy popped up the Turner as a prize for the Nov. 2000 WLAC Nationals by IGSA. I figured- got nothing else to do that weekend- why not?

I had just sold my spare Turner to Martin Drayton and had no spare, and my deck was showing it's age. Martin had met Chris and had a cool California web page on Chris site- Chrischaput.com/martin. I was envious of Martin's California page.

I had just sold two sets of 4" UFO's on . I told Ed Economy to come and get them from me at the Airport. I had never met him. He invited me to crash at his house. I had $60 bucks in my pocket- so that was a relief.

ED drove me to WLAC the next day. I had no sneakers and was using a pair of I-Path Cats (Wallabee look a likes) as I had burned out my sneakers poaching the Gravity Games course downhill earlier in the week. No stores were open - I felt like a dork. Despite being a pale, no tan, East Coaster wearing dorky suede shoes and riding a weird looking Turner Summer Ski (no one else had one at that contest) The Californians were welcoming and I had met about 25 people who were instant friends. I wished I had come out to race earlier. They never made me feel like a Dork and I encourage everyone to come out
and race with these guys. You'll see a lot of goofy smack flying around on this forum... but in person you couldn't hang with a funner group of guys. Come out and race...it'll be one of the best things you ever did.

At WLAC Nov. 2000 I raced 4 events. The Longboard slalom GS, The Shortboard slalom GS and the Tight slalom and the Buttboard event. That race got me the best race results I had ever gotten. Chris Chaput invited me over to his house after that race, and put up my own "California page" that night at chrischaput.com/gilmour- that's a good sport.

So I started posting on NCDSA a lot. I tried to toss out new topics and Chris was always there with GBJ to debate. Chris was the "numbers guy" always up for any new scenario. GBJ was posting about where he thought the sport should head given his organizational experience.

Jack Smith threw the MB race and yanked older California slalomers out of retirement. He woke them up faster than Schultz getting the P.O.W.'s out of bed on Hogan's Heros (that dates me huh?). I met Gareth Roe at Morro Bay and gave Gareth some encouragement to make a new deck. I also gave him some of my snowboard materials suppliers names. Gareth had a really cool turner Full nose deck in great condition- probably the best board at the time for Morro Bay- and Gareth realized that there was a need for new decks- at the time Bob Turner had an arm injury so it looked like there would never be another Turner Summer Ski deck, a friend had an order in with Bob for almost two years for a deck and Bob's arm was bothering him so much I wasn't sure if it was ever going to get made. I promised Gareth a new shape.... which I still owe him.

TK started practicing with me. TK started asking where I got my Hyper Stradas. I gave TK every Hyper Strada lead I could find and ALL my old suppliers. TK emptied every Roller Rink in the USA of their back stock. He talked to just about every slalomer before Morro Bay. I used to sell wheels to the Europeans to pay for my travel to race in Europe. Now TK was selling wheels to the Californians to pay for his racing in California. TK proved that there was a market for a slalom wheel. He turned his sources over to (someone who want's to be an "unknown slalom Angel") and by "da farm race" there were new Fibreflex wheels to end the wheel drought.

So there was a big race at Morro Bay.... my thoughts to myself were... "Wow- this should be fun..... but I hope there isn't a big lull after this- the small events are usually the most fun".

Thankfully............... the lull never came.

Morro Bay got FCR going full steam with Gary Cross' win and a slew of contests started popping up. Henry Hester's La Costa race showed everyone what a race could look like on a professional level. He got the remaining Californian's out of bed. He raised to bar to unheard of stratospheric levels for cone marshaling. Henry also skated fast at La Costa making others follow his lead to start skating again. I still have footage of Henry's first slalom run at Cambria for the Morro Bay Practice- we'll have to do a "Then and Now" clip on the web. Another BIG race....Again.... the lull never came. In fact it sparked smaller contests like "da farm" which ran very well with minimal fanfare. Jim Trippe's video captured the vibe of that race.

After Morro Bay I decided to host a Practice on Storrow Drive in Boston on July 4th. I had just gotten a new wireless internet provider. I knew where the wireless receiver were from talking to the installers of the network. I posted on NCDSA about doing an Internet Broadcast of a race. I got a Email from someone about helping with the Internet Broadcast idea- I had never met him and we hit it off and started having long in depth conversations about the sport. It turns out he owned a company that specialized in internet video broadcasting (narrow casting?) called Surveyor.com, so this was an attainable goal. He had seen the Morro Bay race and found a new way to spend time with his kids through skateboard slalom. His name was Howard Gordon.

Howard was into getting better gear for himself. He asked about Bob Turner. I had never met Bob Turner face to face but had spoken to him for decades over the phone. I knew that the boom bust cycle of skating was difficult on Bob. I also figured that with Snowboarding cross training we might be able to reduce this boom bust effect. Howard and Bob hit it off. Howard did his organizational magic and Bob was getting therapy for his arm. Soon Bob was producing decks again. I had met Bob face to face at the Hamm slamm race- but the image that sticks in my mind of meeting Bob was seeing him covered in dust making the new turners. Bob Turner had the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen. At the ASR show I held the first board of the new batch.

Glenn was putting together some slalom footage- his editing was spot on. He even got it to us pulling a late nighter or two during the ASR show! That video made a huge difference. And it wasn't just the racing footage that was so important-it was the footage of the riders hanging out talking. He was documenting the feel of the slalom scene. I spoke with Deb Gordon at the Hamm Slamm and encouraged her to make more Fibreflex decks and gave her some advice on what sizes to offer. Bob Turner was there as well- Bob said he couldn't stay long...but hung out for the whole race. The ASR show went well. I met Tom Peterson from Hyper, Steve Olson, Pineapple and other skating greats.

Cambria was held by Jack Smith and had a mini GS and a tight slalom- this was the first tight slalom race since WLAC. At Cambria Chris and Howard and I talked about making a new wheel. After a lot of phone conversations we ended up with the dimensions- Chris wanted a huge wheel- I wanted a 62mm wheel we settled on 64mm- but upped the width to add traction so that people could run on larger hills at higher speeds.. Chris told his wheel guy and unexpectedly-.... the wheel was made. Both Turner and Abec 11 wanted to use the same mold. Funny as there were times I had both Chris and Howard on two separate phone lines at the same time. Both were rushing to get this wheel out. This Turner -Abec 11 wheel would be a clone like the Strada clones by Gravity/Krypto and Comet/Fibreflex. My concern was making things better for the racers and the manufacturers. After a round of expensive phone calls we managed to get the durometers doled out such that it was in the racers best interest to buy both Turner and Abec 11's. For the first time ever you could select your wheels to within 2 durometer points. So this past year has had a lot of great racing and the manufacturers have sown the seeds for slalom's growth. More big contests - and those will be immediately followed by smaller contests and more big contests. And hopefully.... no lulls.

The new GRASS format seems like it will work well. This summer will be test for GRASS. We worked from the top down- time to work from the bottom up. I think the format is simple and fun- which is why I started skating in the first place.