"About six of us turned up to compete, but only two even tried" to race. 'You are absolutely nuts,' " Grundy recalls. "One guy in shorts and a T-shirt looked down the hill and said there is no way I'm going down that. The day of the event, it was clear that not everyone had prepared like Grundy. He quickly got to work practicing and finding a helmet and leathers for safety. Surfer Guy Grundy remembers getting a call asking if he wanted to enter the first event. Before the first race in 1975, O'Mahoney got insurance, had police block off the streets and got a permit from a confused Signal Hill Chamber of Commerce that didn't quite understand the event's danger. The contestants in Signal Hill's downhill races remember them as wild, death-defying parties on wheels. Marcus Rietema, the event's organizer, said, "Everything we do today relates back to Signal Hill." Bonelli Regional County Park in San Dimas. Downhill skateboarding and street luge racing are popular again, with the North American Downhill Championships taking place this weekend at the Frank G. The Signal Hill Speed Run, the world's first downhill skateboard speed race, also prompted several developments in the sport, including street luge racing, fully enclosed skate-cars and the introduction of women to the sport of downhill. So for the next four years Signal Hill was the site of some of skateboarding's hairiest races and most vicious wipeouts. It was the natural place to do it," he explained. "It was also the location of the annual Model T Hill Climb, where they raced their souped-up Fords from the bottom to the top.
#SKAT CAR TV#
O'Mahoney told the TV producer he could create a downhill skateboarding race on the steep Signal Hill incline, bordered by oil fields. Skateboard Assn., got a call from the producer of ABC's television show, "The Guinness Book of World Records." The producer wanted to shoot a skateboarding event for the show.Īs a child, growing up in Long Beach, O'Mahoney begged his parents to drive fast over the steepest section of Hill Street, an almost 30-degree incline in Signal Hill that mimicked the feeling of a roller coaster. It was 1975 and skateboarding was hugely popular when Jim O'Mahoney, head of the U.S.
#SKAT CAR SERIES#
After a series of crashes, it was ruled too dangerous to go on. The S ignal Hill Speed Runs were the precursor of the X Games and gave skateboard daredevils a chance to show their stuff.
Below are some stories of this historic event.
The Signal Hill Speed Races were now history. With numerous injuries to competitors, some serious, and now incidents involving spectators, the plug was finally pulled in 1978.
Safety eventually had taken a back seat to speed. As the world record gravity speeds increased on Hill Street, so did the risks. This is where the earth's gravitation pull created the great gravity speed merchants, the legends, and pioneers, with names like, Henry Hester, Guy Grundy, Roger Hickey, Jack Smith, Terry Nails, Dave Dillberg, Sam Puccio, the list goes on and on. Longboard, street luge and the infamous enclosed skate cars were invented and ran here by these gravity pioneers. It happened on a small section of road named Hill Street in Signal Hill, California, with a tilt of almost 30 degrees! In 1975 Jim O'Mahoney promoted this historic speed event, and for the next four years the event became possibly the greatest gravity speed event ever. This was gravity ground zero, the place where gravity land speed racing was born.
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