Credits

Thanks to all of those who helped inspire and contribute time to my skogging endeavors.

When I look back at where my skateboarding started I must note it mostly occurred when I moved from Michigan to San Diego in early 1974 and lived with my oldest brother Ed who was attending San Diego State at the time. I had skated around the early 60′s with my dad’s first board. After he wiped out and got injured, mom would not let us touch one. But as time went on and pictures of the Hobie Team made TV, mom put a skateboard under the tree when we lived in Imperial Beach 1965ish. It was a Montgomery Ward board and after the first week going up and down curves the stamped trucks were trashed. Then we moved to Monterey around 1967 and we got more skateboards there too. More clay based wheels and short short solid wood boards In both Imperial Beach and Monterey I really used the board mostly as a toy. Wheelies, 360′s and up and down curbs were much more fun than laying your life on the line by bombing hills with hard wheels. But it wasn’t until after high school, 1973 that I finally got serious about riding. That happened when I moved back to San Diego in early 1974. I skated lots when I got to San Diego. Day and night up and down hills my good buddies Danny Trailer and Neil Graham would find nice stretches of sidewalk cement outside of grocery stores and just lay lines deep into the night. Turning to check speed down steep hills allowed us to prep for downhill slalom courses and when the races came, we were ready, frothing at the mouth to win. And win we did!

So my real inspiration for skateboarding came from my mom giving into my wants. My wants in my formative years at the time were to get a Schwinn Sting Ray bike and a skateboard. I didn’t want clothes, games or toys. So hats off to mom for getting me going on skateboards. Next in the inspiration department around ’74 is my older brother Ed who helped me buy into the new improved urethane Cadillac wheels and a pinewood solid deck with chicago trucks. This all happened at the San Diego Surf Shop near the Crystal Pier. It was a board I tore up the roads with and won the San Diego City Championships in 1974 and then landed a job at PB Surfshop. That began my era with Gordon and Smith. 1975 Del Mar Nationals and the San Diego Worlds(Murphy Stadium) where I placed 1st in both of those events for my age group and positioned both G&S and Tracker trucks as the new guys on the block. During these times the urethane wheel was going off in many directions with tooty fruity wheels with Kyrptonic 60, 65 and 70′s (Reds, Greens and Blues), UFO’s, Gyro’s, Tunnel Rocks, Sims Snakes, Road Riders and OJ’s to name a few. German Bearings were being touted as break through technology. Laminates with fiber glass layers added great cosmetic and flex attraction marketing features. Trucks for riding pools needed to be way stronger than the stamped versions, like Chicagos. Tracker, Bennetts, Independents and many offshoots started specializing in various axle widths, pivot bushing cups and variable urethane/rubber bushings. And for boards, Fibreflexes were a very cool part of my quiver. I had freestyle, park and slalom boards. Got pretty good on all of them and the best on slalom. I didn’t like staying much with one brand with so many skateboarding variables, I tried lots of everything! Logans, Quicksilvers, Turners, Visions, Sims, Santa Cruz and Dogtowns. With this rich environment of goods, the stage was set for my skateboarding career and helped me with my style of riding today.

So thanks Mom, brother Ed, Bill Andrews, manager at PB Surfshop who hired me on the spot, Larry Gordon who believed in me and my style of riding, David Dominy and Larry Balma at Tracker who turned me on to “wide” trucks. The fellows at NHS with Road Riders and OJ’s. These wheels ruled for an entire summer and could never get enough to keep in stock. The Radpad team for helping my angle pad make prime time sales. Don Thomas who helped me put together a distribution center to help his retail shops and many others in the midwest after I moved from San Diego back to Michigan. My Detroit buddies in the late 70′s, Rob and his friends developed some kick ass fiberflex-like decks in his garage made to my specifications. Skateboard City and Endless Summer skate parks were some great times that came and went. In the 80′s I became consumed in being a developer for a software company in Colorado and skated very sparingly. And when I moved back to San Diego around 1990, Jim at Watson’s helped me produce a few Yandall deck releases while I was a computer programmer at the County of San Diego. And around 2006, John Galac helped with basically a smaller design of his that I had him change to my specifications. It helped produce my currently marketed board by SK8Kings. There is no single point responsible for my riding style or riding preferences. It’s all been cumulative since the mid 60′s. Letting my skateboarding do the talking has always been my strong point and now that I’m almost 60, age has a new skill added to my riding.

Inspirational Skaters: Dan Gessmer, Richy Carrasco, John Hughes, Chewy, Torger Johnson, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, David Hackett, Stelmasky brothers, Michael Early, Chris Chaput, Jonny Miller, Danny Trailer, Neil Graham, Doug Saladino, Henry Hester, Bob Skolberg, Tommy Ryan, Bobby Turner, Steve Cathey, Rene Carrasco, Lynn Kramer, Jackman, Warren Bolster, Jim Goodrich, Bobby Piercy, Shogo Kubo, Tom Sims, Logans, Bob Biniak, Mr. Bennett, cont’d

Photographers: Malakai Kingston, John Galac and Gigi Dearmas-Lopetriello

Design on Chris Yandall’s Samoan Squat on SK8Kings Skogging Deck from John Galac. John’s site is www.galaclandsurfing.com

The current design being used for the Skogging deck was a “collaboration” of a smaller model from John Galac’s design made bigger per Chris Yandall’s specifications.

The current Skogging deck marketed by SK8Kings was also a collaboration with Richy Carrasco who worked diligently with Watson Laminates to upgrade the original board design to an 8 ply stiff solid deck. Maria Carrasco for the fine implementation of the Yandall design plus the cool ads. Many thanks Richy and Maria @ SK8KINGS. My job is to demonstrate the power of a simple design and after 40+ years of skating, this is one hell of nice recreation deck with Bennetts and either Seismics or ABEC11 Centrex.

Website developed by Chris Yandall. Animations and layout as well. Thank you WordPress for making this site more fun to develop, publish and maintain.