Pictures

50 mph in a straight line down a chip sealed road. This is how they used to race in the 90′s. 2012 is a new day an age and skateboarding has come a long way since the 90′s. Downhill skateboard races nowadays aren’t considered exciting unless there are turns and what not.

Not dump road though. The race has been running for quite some time and is part of the infamous Cali Outlaw Series. No sponsors, no permits, just a group of friends both old and new meeting up to race a road nestled in the Badlands of California.

The race is exciting and each finish is a photo finish. The packs are so tight and it actually takes some strategy to win.

Some try to push out to the front of the pack and stay there while others try to get into that persons draft in an attempt to pass them somewhere along the way down the almost 1 mile stretch of road.

Riders pay their entry fees, run a few practice runs followed by the race runs. Heats are run, riders are eliminated and finally it becomes time for the finals. Everyone cheers on their friends and a champion is crowned.

Open Class

1st- Tim Del Rosario

2nd- Daniel Luna

3rd- Key Dougherty

Groms

1st- Ethan Vinograd

2nd- Chance Gaul

3rd- Roger Jones

Luge

1st- Mike Mc Intyre

2nd- Key Dougherty

3rd- John Rogers

Bonelli is always a fun time but as far as all the racers are concerned it’s a super lame race…..yet they still come.
The course used to be a straight line until quite a few years back now they added the right hand turn into it.
The turn is kind of technical though. It is pretty flat after the turn so riders must hold their speed as much as possible through the turn to win it.

This causes many crashes since everyone is trying to take the line as fast as they can but not so fast that they slide or crash into the hay bails.
The hay bails lining the turn are the best 3rd basemen in skateboarding. I call it crash corner due to the large amount of crashes.

This actually makes for a very entertaining event for the spectators also.
There seemed to be a lot less crashes this year compared to the 2010 or 2011 races we attended. That’s not to say there weren’t a lot of crashes, but there weren’t as many.

For those who don’t already know Bonelli is a sanctioned IGSA race. It is actually the U.S. Nationals. The race is not just downhill skateboarding but also includes street luge, classic street luge and inline rollerblading.
The big story of the day is 18 year old Daniel Luna taking 1st place in the open division. Great job Daniel!

Turkey Shoot 2012 from Adrenaline Fueled on Vimeo.

Edit and filmed by: Leecifer

When you have over 70 skaters all bombing down a road at the same time it is not your normal session. It is actually pretty epic. The kinda experience you remember for a long time.

I saw everything from people giving each other wedgies on the way down the hill to mini  play fights pushing each other on skateboards going 30 mph down the hill.

Everything about it was just that much more fun with more people. An experience, an adventure, another chapter to the book of skateboarding.

Everybody had memories of the year before when a police helicopter showed up and followed us down the entire 3.5 mile run. It was like a scene out of a movie.

Well until next black friday keep it adrenaline fueled! – Leecifer

Justin here, back again, bringing you the lowdown on the UnModern Industries Mega Mega Mini Ramp Battle Royale, hosted by the legendary Mike Vallely and his Elephant Skateboards brand. It all went down on August 18th at UnModern Industries Skateshop in Santa Fe Springs – $1,000 was up for grabs in a winner-takes-all showdown, judged by Mike V. himself. Dozens of awesome riders came out to skate – from locals, to the shop owner and team members, to Wheelbase Magazine’s own Marcus Bandy, a legend in his own right. The night started off with a crazy demo from Mike V., then progressed to a couple guys on the ramp – mostly shop riders and the homies from Resource Distribution (where your Paris Trucks, Divine Wheels, and other goodies come from!) – but soon, more and more were dropping in until it got almost too gnarly to ride.

Everyone was respectful and stoke levels were massively high, but some epic bails and collisions were unavoidable. As the night went on, Mike kept a close eye on the shredders until he felt comfortable picking out the top 10 that he wanted to see move on to the finals (with a little crowd input of course!). After that, only those 10 were allowed on the ramp, and one by one Mike picked people off down to the final two. UnModern Riders Eddie Anaya, John Ruzzamenti, Johnny Abernathy, and Jon Trujillo held it down for the shop, but the final came down to two local young guns – Hector Tehuitzil and Steven Palacios.

Hector was throwing down HARD and landing big tricks all night – even going so far as to score a classy finger-flip drop in from the top of the 10ft high restroom in the corner of the warehouse – at least a solid 5ft from the edge of the ramp. But Steven brought his A-game as well and Mike felt that his style and consistency all night won him the top spot, the trophy, and a cool thousand dollars cash.

I can’t thank Adan Garcia, owner of the shop, or Mike Vallely enough for putting this event on. It went amazingly well, and everyone had a great time. Beer, drinks, and snacks were provided and they even had local band The Shrine come out and wrap up the night with some tunes. It was rad, look for it again next year.

Check it out, it even made onto the Ride Channel on TV!

Ride TV Coverage!

You stay classy SoCal,

Justin

See all the pictures HERE.

Please visit our sponsors who help make it all possible

Please visit our sponsors who help make it all possible:

The Talegalympics was a series of events set up very loosely and there was not enough time in the day to complete everything. Races, team relays, slide

Hey it’s me coming around the corner! Photo By: Justin Reed

contests, longest slide and unused ramps stood on the side of the road. It was many kids first times to the road and lots of kids left skin and blood at the hill. If you start to take Talega lightly it will bite you. I’ve been there. It’s a hill that is pretty gnarly. You have to know what your doing there.

For those of you unfamiliar with the road at a place we call Talega here’s the rundown. It’s a service road that leads up to a water tower. The whole road is very narrow. (About the size of a lane on a freeway.) From the very top of the road it is pretty much just a straight bomb down a narrow pathway where you accelerate to maybe around 40 mph. Then it hits a slight uphill section to around a 500 ft flat section. This is where the technical part of the road comes. The road then winds left and then shoots down a steep section into a hairpin right which requires a small pre-drift into it although I have seen riders grip it before. It then shoots down another steep section into an off camber left hairpin turn that causes most riders to crash. “Crash corner” i have nicknamed it. EVERYONE CRASHES HERE! The turn is slanted so as your sliding into it it is throwing you off the road. It is a very tough turn to navigate. After all of that you are shooting down the last steep section (each section just as steep as the last) into a hairpin right turn. This is another turn you have to drift and it shoots you across the finish line. The only easy part of this road is the straight beginning, after that it’s all tech.

Cameron Zweifel gets steezy with his stand up slide. Photo By: Justin Reed

Alex Wu, 20, of Yorba Linda, Ca shows off his road rash. Photo By: Justin Reed

Anyways with all the events it turned out to be a long day on the hill, not that it wasn’t fun. Just looong and the event took forever to get started but once it did everything got going kinda smoothly besides the fact it took us all to walk back up the whole hill again and again. After the racing was done the slide jams and other contests started.
The team relay was the first event and an interesting one because it hadn’t been done before. One rider would bomb from the top to the flat section where he would tag his awaiting team mate who would have to go through the hairpins. Me and my team mate Tim Bogart actually won this event. Go Tim!!!

Everything else was pretty standard, time trials, slide jams, longest slide. Fun stuff.

“I think it went awesome,” said Kye Pirrie, 18, Redondo Beach. “It was definitely worth it.” Kye was the event organizer and he was going just as hard into it as anyone else. During the time trials I watched him high side into the final right which was toe side for him. It was a brutal crash that left him in the bushes. He trooped it out and finished the race only to later on find out his finger was completely broken all the way through on his thumb.

Kye wasn’t the only one to leave skin at the hill. Just about everyone actually left some skin there. Everyone who skated for the most part anyways. “I kinda underestimate it, hit a patch of gravel and that was it,” said Alex Wu, 20, Yorba Linda. Alex left a lot of skin actually as you can see from this picture!

You can find all the pics on our facebook page here! Make sure to become a fan!

Talegalympics winners! Photo By: Grant Kiessling