50 cones...New GWR Record!

[Martin Drayton]

Well, China's largest TV company (15 stations and 1 Billion viewers in Asia!!!) wanted a new skateboard GWR record for their Recordbreakers show and contacted the Guinness World Records organisation for ideas.

They came up with an idea:
- 50 cones @ 1.6m (5ft 3ins) centre-to-centre on the FLAT with a CLEAN run! Timing starts behind the first cone and ends when the whole of the board passes the last cone.

I think they trawled the ISSA section on SS.com and saw flatland distance discussions.
They also made it clear that they were NOT interested in cone penalties, only perfect runs and wanted an event that was more accessible for people to try, more so than the 100 cone record.
The event took place at Hyde Park in London on 2nd October 2007.

On the day, we unfortunately had steady light drizzle continuously following rain the night before, so the original location was too wet and treacherous with some pools of free standing water. It was clear with the high humidity it was going nowhere. Luckily Curt found a spot under some trees that had ALMOST enough room for all 50 cones.The pic below shows me doing a helmet-cam run and you can see how wet the start of the run is.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v204/ ... metcam.jpg

This was the only day they had set aside to do it, so I figured I would just go easy for the first couple of runs.

The rest of the pics are here:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v204/ ... n/?start=0

It meant a run-in with wet wheels and a very wet first 7 cones, a dryer section with a few wet slippery sections and a wet run-out. The end result? 12.83sec clean and a new world record-IN THE WET! There will be video footage available soon!

I was a little dissapointed as I had done 11.22sec clean in the dry last week off a shorter run-in, so was planning to shoot for a sub 11sec on the day after a 'safety' run. After a clean run on my 3rd attempt the event was over as far as the Officials and the TV company were concerned, so my plan of a conservative run followed by a flat-out run never materialised! I was bummed!

Well, the Guinness officials were there on hand to give me my certificate so I was happy to have something to show my daughter in my old age (not that far off)!
I would like to thank my Support Team, Pig City's finest -
Curly Curt, Munchh, Mark the Weatherwitch, Frank N, Niall, Ellis and Kane.

I would also like to thank my sponsors for their support and encouragement -
Gecko Decks - Jeff Sacre, for making the lightest boards EVER built.
Seismic Wheels - Dan Gesmer, awesome wheels from an awesome guy.
Nitro bearings, Khiro hardware - Khiro Bob is probably one of the unsung heroes supporting our sport...Thank you Bob for mindblowing bearings!
Bolle eyewear - Supporting me on snow and concrete since 1995.
Vans shoes/Protec pads - Thank you Derek Voit for going out on a limb.
Skullcandy headphones - Simply the best, thanks Rick Alden.
Decent Hardware Bags - Thanks Jonno for the best skate luggage ever built.
Octanesport - Thanks Michael for always helping a brother out.

[Martin Drayton]

And made by Mark Roberts, here is the video of the event:
http://www.metacafe.com/w/868141/

Sk8 safe,