Downhill skateboard used by Guy 'Grundy' Spagnoli
date: label: date made
content: 1975
name: label: user
content: Spagnoli, Guy Grundy
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Red fiberglass downhill skateboard with metal Bennet trucks and red urethane Stoker wheels. This skateboard is reddish orange in color, pointed in the front and the back and has dark red plastic tape with a hash mark pattern etched into the surface for better grip. There are two stickers on the bottom of the board: USSA / OFFICIAL and a downhill skateboarder sticker are black and yellow on a white ground. This skateboard was used by downhill skateboarder Guy 'Grundy' Spagnoli in 1975 during the first Downhill Skateboard contest hosted by the United States Skateboard Association on Signal Hill in which he set the first recorded Guiness Book Land Speed Record on a skateboard at 50.2 mph. Hill Street in Signal Hill, California was known for its 30 degree, stomach dropping incline and in 1975, became the perfect place to promote the first downhill skateboard race in the United States. Guy Grundy, a local surfer, was asked by race organizer, Jim O’Mahoney if he wanted to participate in this first race which was to be televised by the ABC television show, “The Guinness Book of World Records”. As a pro surfer Grundy knew this could be a dangerous event so he prepared accordingly, buying race leathers and a helmet. The other racers had shown up in shorts and T-shirts but once they saw the steep hill backed out of the race for fear of injury. The only other contestant fell and dislocated his shoulder leaving Spagnoli to complete his run and enter the history books and the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest man on a skateboard. Signal Hill would also break ground by allowing women to compete in the downhill competitions and witnessed the advent of the ‘skate-car’. These were gravity defying machines that proved more dangerous than the stand-up downhill boards due to their construction which made them difficult to stop at the speeds that they generated down the steep incline of Signal Hill. The Signal Hill Speed Runs would reign supreme for the next four years before countless wrecks, gruesome injuries and a couple of near death accidents would shut the races down.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: web subject
content: Sports
label: web subject
content: skateboarding
label: name of sport
content: Racing
label: level of sport
content: Professional
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Sport and Leisure
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2014.0121.03
label: accession number
content: 2014.0121
label: catalog number
content: 2014.0121.03
objectType: label: Object Name
content: skateboard
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: fiberglass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: urethane (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 48 in x 8 1/4 in x 4 in; 121.92 cm x 20.955 cm x 10.16 cm