Guy Grundy is one of downhill skateboarding’s pioneers. Recently, Dusters California launched a deck in his honor. Guy is also featured in the Signal Hill Speed Run documentary. Guy started skating in 1961 at the age of 8. Like many early skaters of his generation, Guy created his first skateboard from his sister’s roller skates. “I nailed them to a 2 x 4 board with carpet stapled to the top” he fondly recalls. “The board rode really slippery and every crack was an obstacle.
At 12, he took up surfing and became an excellent surfer. “Surfing played everything into my skating – the flow, the power line and feeling the wind.” Guy took his surfing stance and then used that in his stance and tuck on his skateboard.
Guy could speed pump a board as fast if not faster than most. Dorian Paskowitz use to call him “The Mosquito” down at San O’ in Oceanside. “I found that weighting and un-weighting not only gave me lift (of course) on my surfboard but really made a difference on my speed board skateboard.” Skateboarding also helped Guy with his surfing especially on those totally flat spells that California is so use to getting.
His first sponsor was Infinity Surfboards with Steve & Berrie Bahne down in Huntington Beach. His board was a mahogany core made by Dave Dillberg. It had four layers of fiberglass on top and six on the bottom. “It featured Tracker Trucks and red urethane wheels” explains Guy. “The board is being sent to the Smithsonian.”
The first Signal Hill race took place in 1975 and Guy heard about the event via Jim O’Mahoney who was organizing the race. “I had Infinity as a sponsor and I went to Bates Leathers and Premier Helmets and told them the deal and they sponsored me.”
Before the Signal Hill event, Guy had unofficially gone 65 mph. “I was being chased by the Infinity Surf Van. I could go pretty fast and there were many times people forgot to look down to see what the speed was. Back then we were all having a really good time. It wasn’t serious and we weren’t looking to set or break any records, we were just speed boarding.”
Guy took first place at Signal Hill with a world speed record of 50.2 mph. “Winning took a bit to set in. But it felt great!”
The one thing that today’s generation of downhill skater’s will find remarkable is Guy’s truly unique parallel stance. “My stance came from my love of skiing. I felt that my feet side by side was a good platform and I had really good control both side to side and forward to back. I could put my feet close together or separate them a bit (depending on how wide the board I was using) and I really felt comfortable in that stance.”
Guy admits that tucking down into that stance is pretty hard for people and being able to rock back and forth can be somewhat of a task. “It was an advantage for me also because not everyone could do it” he says. With his feet in the parallel mode guy had a little more stabilization over his trucks. Guys says he very seldom got the speed wobbles where as other riders had a terrible time with the wobbles at speed.
After 1978, skateboarding focused mostly on vert and the downhill scene seemed to fade into the background. “It really didn’t affect me”, recalls Guy, “I was working a couple of jobs and one of them happened to be at the Concrete Wave Skateboard Park in Anaheim. We had so much great talent coming through that park and riding the bowls and having that much fun back then didn’t bother me a bit on the downhill.”
As Guy remembers, it was the last race at Signal Hill that really put the screws to downhilling there. “We had a lot of people get hurt because of equipment or inexperience. Not only did we hurt people in the crowd but we also had riders get hurt badly and one almost died.”
Four decades ago, Guy Grundy pioneered speed racing but he remains humble about his contributions; “It never really dawned on me that I was pioneering anything at that time. I’m stoked I helped in my own little way. Now, when I look back, I realize holy sh*t! We started this!”
Currently, Guy lives in Utah where he works. He enjoys skating, snowboarding and camping. He heads down to lower Mexico to ride waves. In terms of the current generation he is very impressed by the Maryhill Ratz. “They are out there bombing this winding downhill run and just having FUN. They are organized and safety minded, and it doesn’t get any better than that. My hat’s off to all those guys and gals out there skateboarding and having fun!”
As Guy sees it, the renaissance of longboarding is not something that was unexpected. “Riding a longboard is natural. Sometimes it’s just nice to cruise and a longboard is just the right board for cruising.” But as he quickly points out; “God forbid, though, if some young gun comes riding around my house and comes riding down my hill. I’m going to grab my new ‘Grundy Model’ and pass him/her like they were standing still!”