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It would be a stretch, but not a long one, to view the World Slalom Championships as a further installment of Jack Smith's crusade to make the world a smaller, friendlier place.  All three of his companions from 1984 are coming to Morrow Bay, where one of them, Paul Dunn, is the favorite of Vegas odds-makers.

This time around, Smith's charitable impulses are focused on the construction of a local skate park.  As in many communities, skateboarding has been banned from the streets where Kim Kimball's brother once rode.  For kids today, skate parks are a kind of last refuge.  The outlaw legacy of Tony Alva has taken its toll.

All that may change.  Morro Bay may be a milestone, or better -- to draw an analogy from slalom skating, the all-but-forgotten branch of the sport being resurrected on Sunday -- a position marker, like one of the orange cones around which a rider pivots and accelerates.  Because a change in
skateboarding has been in the air for some time now.


"There was an event," recalls Jack Smith, who peaks quietly but rapidly, with barely restrained passion, "called the Old School Skate Jam.  It was like a reunion of folks who rode back in the 70's, some all the way back in the 60's.  Henry Hester was there.  Bob Skoldberg.  So many great skaters. Then just recently, there was something called the Gathering.  More people turned up.  It made you realize something like this is possible.  So I started thinking, maybe we should have a contest.

"I tell people," he goes on, then interrupts himself with a self-deprecating laugh, "and I know this sounds corny.  But it's almost like:  If you build it, they will come."

That's as far as Smith can get, it seems, to explaining what is happening at Morro Bay.  Out of nowhere, companies have lined up to sponsor an event of a kind that has not occurred in this country for nearly two decades.  This kind of skating, as betting favorite Paul Dunn explains, is "not so much 'skateboarding' as is it hard slalom skiing.

In slalom, the competitor tries to steer his board as quickly as possible between a series of nine-inch-tall orange pylons.  The pylons are spaced at intervals as short as five feet (those at Morro Bay will be spaced a bit more widely).  The course may be located on a slope, or a winding road, and may employ a staggered cone layout, or any of these difficulties in combination.  Thus, slalom demands not only raw speed but balance, adroitness, on-the-fly calculation ... and the right board for the job. The equipment factor has proven especially vexing for many old pros in Sunday's race.  Slalom skating requires specialized gear that includes the board itself (known as a deck), wheels that are fast and "grippy," and pivoting axle assemblies called trucks.  Slalom equipment has not been designed or manufactured in the United States since the glory days of the 70's and early 80's.  In the interim, the focus of slalom skating has shifted to Europe, especially Switzerland, where new materials and design concepts have been introduced.

But while younger racers, especially Europeans, will come to Morro Bay toting the latest high-tech gear, few North Americans have ridden that stuff, and not many seem inclined to try.  Hence, a scramble has ensued among U.S. entrants to beg, borrow or bid on vintage Turner Summer Skis, G&S Hesters, Sims Taperkicks, Hyper Strada wheels, ACS 650 trucks and other proven (but long out-of-production) triumphs of Yankee engineering. Paul Dunn sums up the situation:  "Without e-Bay and secret stashes of equipment, nobody would be ready."

As the cycle from the 70's to the 00's is rounded, many disparate threads are coming together.  Swiss, French and German skaters, whose styles have emerged from the Alpine skiing tradition, will meet surf-influenced Californians.  Children of the Eisenhower era will meet kids who barely remember the Cold War.  Teenagers who can ollie the Grand Canyon but wouldn't know a slalom board if they tripped on one will get to see Ellen O'Neal, Queen of Freestyle, show off the kind of agility, grace and (dare one say it?) class that used to be part of the skating scene.

A heartening aspect of the World Slalom Championships, to a middle-aged skater watching from the sidelines, is the open-hearted spirit of its participants.  Old pros have opened up their "quivers" of gear to outfit comrades and competitors.  Locals in California are hustling to arrange airport pickups, rides up the coast, and lodging in Morro Bay for the young guys flying in at short notice from overseas.  In an online forum, oldschoolers pool their thoughts on board set-up and training regimens, arrange practice sessions, and joke about one another's physical condition. "Arab has shin splints, my back is spasming, Simon's arm is aching, Gilmour's belly is burgeoning," wrote one of Sunday's competitors.  "Isn't old age wonderful?"

But the remarkable thing is that, for all anyone nows, one of these bloodied veterans may carry home the trophy.  They have done it before. I recently posed the question of who would be the oldest competitor in the race.  A tongue-in-cheek reply came from Ed Economy, the well-regarded board designer:  "Nobody is older than Cliff Coleman.  (I think he is about 65? 70?  He is way up there.)  But don't take him lightly, he will chew you up and spit you out skating backwards with a yo-yo in his hand.  Some of the older guys might not be as fast as the young guys but they are smarter." In point of fact, Mr. Coleman, inventor of a scary maneuver known as the Coleman Slide, is 51, the same age as Russ Howell.  He makes no secret of his excitement about the coming event.  "I know I'll have one of the most memorable times in my skating career," he wrote in an online discussion group.  He went on: "To all of you who come from outside of the United States, WELCOME!  If you don't know me please come over and say hello at the race!
"The waiting is very difficult."

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Results from the The other World Slalom Skateboarding Championships presented by Sector 9 and Etnies

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