Slalom boarding to debut at park
![Image](http://news.newstimes.com/photos/2004-07-09/0708ck44.jpg)
Photo by William Tway
Wes Tucker of Summerville, S.C., races a slalom board in Vista, N.Y., last summer.
By Marietta Homayonpour
THE NEWS-TIMES
BETHEL — Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park may be a great place to do business, but its wide, curving roads also are popular for sports.
People often walk or run for exercise on Clarke Circle, Trowbridge Drive or Turnage Road. Every year bike races and soap box derbies are held on special weekends.
Soon, another sport will be added to the roster. "Slalom boarding" makes its park debut in August.
"We're all a bunch of old guys," said slalom boarder William Tway. The 40-year-old Westchester County resident is organizing the event.
On Tuesday night, he received the Board of Selectmen's blessing to hold races Aug. 7 with a rain date of Aug. 8.
"It sounds like a lot of fun," said First Selectman Alice Hutchinson, adding selectmen were impressed with the "great job" Tway did in explaining the sport and were satisfied the organizers had enough insurance for the event.
"This is absolutely the perfect spot," said Tway about Clarke Park. "It's not too steep, there's no traffic, it's quiet and the roads are wide enough to have head-to-head races."
Races are free and Tway encourages spectators to bring lunches and spend the day.
Part of the proceeds from the $50 racers' entrant fees will go to Bethel animal control, which will use the money to help spay and neuter cats and dogs.
Slalom boarding is skateboarding without the tricks and the ramps, the rails and half-pipes that make up a skate park. It's competitive racing around cones. Most participants are between 35 and 45 years old, said Tway, adding "we're trying to get the youth of today into this sport."
That sounds good to Nancy LoBalbo, who is on the committee that manages the Bethel Skate Park, where pre-teens and teens try to "ollie" high in the air or "grind" their boards across an iron rail.
"I would hope that our kids would check it out," said LoBalbo.
Racers in the Bethel event will cover a roughly 800-foot course, going about 20 miles an hour. They must wear helmets and knee and elbow pads.
In the giant slalom race, cones are spaced 8 to 10 feet apart and in the tight slalom they're about 6 feet apart. A "vintage race" with pre-1978 boards and with cones widely spread out also will be held.
Tway said slalom boarding races began in the mid 1960s but were most popular in the 1970s when urethane wheels replaced clay wheels and gave the riders better traction. In the late 1970s, ABC television aired the world championships live on the Wide World of Sports, he said.
But interest waned in the early 1980s, when childen began doing tricks with the boards and slalom racing lost its appeal. Around 2000, however, interest revived because enthusiasts found each other on the Internet.
Today, about 600 slalom board racers are registered around the world and a World Slalom Championship is held each year in Morro Bay, Calif. Slalom boarding "is huge in Europe," said Tway, adding some racers from Europe may come to the Bethel event.
As of Thursday, 22 competitors had registered for the Bethel race, including some from Virginia and Colorado. There will be a maximum of 50 entrants.
The Bethel race, called The Farm, will be the fourth in the American Cup Slalom Series that started in mid-April in Jackson, Miss., and will end in Morro Bay, Calif., with the world championships from Oct. 8 to 10.
Slalom boards are between 28 to 32 inches long and about 8 inches wide. That's a little narrower than the skateboards used for trick boarding but the big difference
between the two types of boards are in the shape and material used, said Tway.
"They're very specialized," said Tway. Slalom boards are flat and don't have the kick tail of a trick skateboard. Instead of wood, they are made of carbon fiber or "foam core," similar to a surfboard.
Tway is a snowboarder and used that sport to describe the thrill of slalom boarding. "It's the same sensation as a deep carve on a snowboard."
Contact Marietta Homayonpour
at
mhomayonpour@newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3336.