Zoobomb Skate Race 2009

Yesss!

i am SO excited. should be a good turnout.

hey!
Im down in Salt Lake and I'm very interested.
I need some more information.

What would you like to know trev? This is in Portland, Oregon, February 15th, 9:00pm. 10th and Burnside is downtown Portland across the street from Powell's Books. 25-40mph course, not a closed road, outlaw, every-man-for-himself kamikaze bomb. Also it will be dark and hard to see. Skateboarding in the street is legal in Portland, running stop signs, riding at night without a light and riding in the wrong lane is not. You can practice the run all day all night whenever you want, the MAX train goes from the top to the bottom til midnight.

ooh sounds nice. I think we'll make the triip.
what is the expected turnout? I've got two buddies, A fellow downhiller and a biker, whats zoobombers role in this?
How techical of a run is it?

Last year we had about 30 skaters. The skate race is part of the Minibike Winter Olympics, which is basically a bunch of different categories of Zoobomb madness. There is an open-bike race, a freak bike race, a minibike race, I think a mini-minibike race, a gravity-bike race, the skate race, a chariot race?, probably more that I forgot. Hopefully a buttboard race as well! So your buddy on the bike will have just as fun a time as you will. Last year a few of the bikers went to different blind spots on the course and blocked traffic for the skate race, it will probably be the same this time around.

"How techical of a run is it?"

I think you can actually do a street view on Google Earth, all the way down the run.

It starts out a mellow 30-35mph straight for a minute or so, then it flattens out and you might have to push a couple times, then it drops into a neighborhood and goes into a couple sweepers, you can cruise 25 through here or tuck around 35. Then the road flattens out right before you get to a hard right hand hairpin. If you are taking it easy you won't have to drift, if you take it fast you have to drift to stay in your lane. Then it's almost flat/slightly downhill for a few sweepers, there is a hard left at the end of that when you finally build some speed up, maybe 25-30mph. They just repaved that left so it's pretty damn nice. Then you drop into a straightaway called the speed hole, you can cruise it at 25 or bomb it and break 40, at the bottom of that is a 3-way stop sign and a 45 degree kink to the left. Not a very technical corner but if there is any traffic it gets mad sketch, as Billy and I discovered at 43mph, a few days before the race last year. Then it flattens out for a second, drops again and then you've got 2 90 degree right handers in a row. The second one is called the rose bush corner because if you go wide off the road you go into some thorny rose bushes. It is banked away from you and has some chunks in it, so either predrift the fuck out of that one or footbrake a bunch. Then it's a 90 degree left with reflectors in the middle, you gotta cut the corner right to weave the reflectors, most people just footbrake and cut a clean line through it. Then it's a couple kinks to the finish line. All in all it's not that technical but you can make it fairly technical if you tuck enough.

thanks Casey
That is VERY helpful for those of us who would like to race but haven't yet had the chance to skate it yet.
I'm hoping to check it out sunday because I have no school the next day.

Thanks for the help. We'll most likely head up there on the 14th, so seeya then.

Has anyone thought of hay bales at the infamous 10 mph? You've gotta assume that the rose bushes and very sharp decorative rocks are there to deter us, huh? I remember as Huey went over the curb and got tangled in them. Just a suggestion!

I love the idea of hay bails!

hay is for horses

Ahh sorry guys. Everything went to shit. We wont be making it to the race. You will be seeing us sometime in the next few months and we wanna see the most thrashin roads Portland has to offer!

we got lots

alternately, how many practice runs? same as last year Mr. Bones? or Casey. thanks for the gnar btw casey, it's really helping!

just one practice run. if we had the time we'd do more but we don't want to miss our opportunity to have traffic blocked by zoobombers.

Bummer to hear you wont make it up Trevoroven. You should plan to make it up for McNarly race this year. you won't be disappointed.

what time we meetin at? 9 o'clockers at the pile?

we hit it last night and it seems like there is some new gravel. I recommend we go out and sweep. It would be cool if I didn't have to go out and buy a broom so if anyone has an extra push broom bring it!

how about we take like 3 runs before hand with push brooms, I have a bunch. We could probably manage like 2 hours.

huey and i are going to do a little clean-up today. hopefully that should keep it clean for the race.

Addison is going to be at Zoobomb - this will be his first zoobomb race though. His uncle Patrick is going to take him, so at the risk of embarrasing them, can I ask you guys to keep an eye out for him? His uncle is sketchy on the course and is just transportation. If someone can direct him to a corner that he can help scope for traffic, he'll be happy to help. They both have cells, so should be able to find each other at the end. I'd really appreciate it!