Saturday's race will be held on the "Turkish Pavilion" hill at Tower Grove Park (RED line on the Google map). It's an S-shaped street with a mellow slope but plenty of speed.
SUNDAY's races are at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley (GOLD line on Google map). This is a steeper hill (about 7 degrees) with a top speed of about 25 mph.
On Friday, May 26, we’ll also have our usual Friday late-afternoon fun session (not a race, just a session for those who are interested) for anyone who just wants to meet up and hang out. Friday's fun session will be on a different hill, a little further east in the park (AQUA line on map).
All races on both days will use a standard start ramp, but those who need it will be allowed a limited push start.
FRIDAY, MAY 26, for those who are interested: An afternoon/evening outlaw session at "Spot 2," a mellow hill near the east end of Tower Grove Park. Single lane, no timer, just for fun. To work out the kinks after your travel or just hang out, stop by any time after 5:30 p.m.
View of Friday hill (from top):
SATURDAY, MAY 27, we plan a dual-lane 68-cone race. Cone spacing will be tight-ish, between 6 and 7 feet. This hill is NOT steep, so the race will reward anyone who can generate his/her own speed. Practice your pumping!
Here’s a brief video of what the hill at Tower Grove looks like:
SUNDAY, MAY 28, will be single-lane GS and single-lane Hybrid. Courses will emphasize speed and fun—makeable for newbies, challenging for experts to go fast on. In each race, you’ll get a minimum of three runs; the combined times of each racer’s two fastest runs will be used to determine the winner.
TIMING Trackmate timing system, using RANDOM beep for dual-lane racing, NON-random beep for single-lane.
AMENITIES Free food for racers on both Saturday and Sunday! As in the past couple of years, we'll have a DIY food spread where you can make your own PB&J sammich, or grab a donut, a banana or other fresh fruit, ice water or Gatorade-type drinks.
We'll have a portable restroom (with sink) at top of course, plus public restroom about 300 yards away; plenty of shade from the park's many trees; event-only pavilion with picnic tables and water pump 50 yards from top of the course.
PARKING At Tower Grove, there's room for about 8-10 cars by the barricades at the top of the course, and plenty more room to park on South East Drive, just on the other side of Central Cross Drive. See map for details.
SURFACE Decent asphalt, good runout at the bottom--no footbraking required.
CASH PRIZES & SWAG Top three Pro finishers in each event will win CA$H money. Top three OVERALL*** finishers in each division will receive a custom trophy, handmade by one of the Daggers. And of course we'll try to provide some swag from some of the amazing companies that support slalom and other forms of skateboarding.
***OVERALL placing (total of both Saturday and Sunday) will be calculated by official ISSA rules, which assign a point value to each racer’s placing.
LODGING There is no "official" race hotel. But there are plenty of other hotels in and around the area, including the following: Only a couple of miles from Tower Grove Park is Red Roof Inn. About $100/night. Another option: You can often get a really nice hotel within 5 miles of the park for less than $100 on Priceline or Hotwire. Just specify downtown or Union Station as the area. Finally, if finding a place to crash will make the difference between coming and not coming, let us know, and we'll try to work something out.
WEATHER In the event of the "R" word, we have three options: 1) Cancel the race (nooooooo!) 2) Race anyway (rain or shine), or 3) Move the race to an "undisclosed location" somewhere out of the rain.
In the race organizers' opinion, Option #1 just totally sucks, and Option #2 can be tough to pull off. Which leaves us with Option #3: If we get dumped on, we will attempt to move the race either to a parking garage downtown (location TBA). It would result in a much different race than at Tower Grove, but we’d give it a shot. No guarantees, though.
If we get just a little rain, we may be able to dry the course with some help from Mother Nature--and a propane torch, as shown in this photo of the one and only Clifton Jennings:
OTHER STUFF
Free T-shirt for every racer!
Free BBQ immediately after SATURDAY's race. All you'll have to do is walk over to the Turkish Pavilion, sit down and chow down!
Turkish Pavilion
Assorted images from previous years:
Trophies from 2015 race
2012
2011
2011 trophy
2010
Deron “D-Ron” Rehma. Photo: Scott Spaeth
Plus other cool stuff – stay tuned!
1st Place Finisher:
Jonathan Harms
2nd Place Finisher:
Lou Statman
3rd Place Finisher:
Lynn Kramer
Overall Results:
Registered Contestants (23) -- Slalom St. Louis 2017
Name
Home City
Sponsors
Bio
Comment
Date Submitted
1.
Jonathan Harms
Saint Louis, MO
JBH/PG, with generous help from Venom and Dont-Trip
Co-organizer of race ...
... which makes for a great excuse if I get beat.
4/21/2017 1:35:17 PM
2.
Lynn Kramer
San Diego, CA
Sk8Kings, Khiro, ABEC 11
LCB!
Can't wait to see the T-shirt.
4/22/2017 5:50:51 AM
3.
Joyce Wheldrake
Toronto, Ontario
non of that..
Womans Legend in my own mind...
Another Skateboarding Road Trip to U S of Eh...
4/22/2017 7:49:57 PM
4.
Jeremy Coffman
LOUISVILLE
yeah right. ha!
this particular heap of dna helixes is a complete waste of genetic material and perfectly good chemicals that could have been used to make wheels or something.
yeah. what the bio says. perfectly good waste of whatever. and getting slower and slower and slower and slower.
5/9/2017 3:39:10 PM
5.
Brad Burnell
Rockford, IL
Don't Trip
5/9/2017 9:17:10 PM
6.
David Tolley
Huntington WV
Sasquatch inc.
Skating since I wuz a wee feller. Never any good at it.
I sure hope more people sign up.
5/17/2017 4:03:36 PM
7.
Tom Weisenbach
Lexington Ky
5/18/2017 3:08:32 PM
8.
Lou Statman
Austin, Texas
HelpUHome
I'm here, let's skate!
See above
5/18/2017 9:04:20 PM
9.
Keenan Thompson
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Idk about "sponsors", but these guys give me stuff: Rolling Tree, Liftboard, MXK
I was a young up-and-comer but now I'm a old has-been-arounder
I'm brining my new pup, her name is Winnie, You guys are going to love her. ❤️
5/19/2017 1:40:48 PM
10.
Keith Hollien
Gainesville, FL.
Keith Hollien Signature Series, Radikal Trucks, FreeRide Skate & Surf Shop, Sk8Kings-AXE ARMY & Oust Bearings.
Skateboarding for 53 years and Slalom Skateboarding for 41 years.
5/19/2017 3:01:37 PM
11.
Jon Seeger
St.Louis Mo
5/19/2017 4:59:36 PM
12.
Aliera Soulsby-Monroy
League City
5/20/2017 4:54:07 PM
13.
Marcos Soulsby-Monroy
League City
Disavowed
5/20/2017 4:54:50 PM
14.
Paul Adams
New Orleans, LA
Mary made me do it
5/21/2017 1:43:27 PM
15.
Madison Prez
New Orleans, LA
5/21/2017 1:44:56 PM
16.
Shawn Hughes
Belleville Illinois
Jolly Roger skateboards 1984 skateboards
Skateing for 21years First slalom race
5/22/2017 6:24:36 AM
17.
chris Favero
Chicago
FBR/ChiXill
shit, still rollin'
Thanks, cannot wait to see you all
5/22/2017 6:33:26 AM
18.
natron the giant Favero
Chicago
FBR/ChiXill
grew up skating this race
woot
5/22/2017 6:35:01 AM
19.
Steven Lewis
Stl
Me myself and I
5/22/2017 12:57:01 PM
20.
Murph Rueter
Belleville il
Skated a couple times, first slalom
5/23/2017 3:18:04 PM
21.
Scott #1 Shark Attack Kamins
waucondDa
you know
Prolly the best racer to ever race in a race!
There will some day be books written about this dude