There’s been a lot of nonsense written and spoken about the world of extreme sports. Laden with the image of the bugged out adultescents redolent of the marketing campaigns for energy drinks, baggy b-boy denim and the idiotic language of dudish, the mainstream world unsurprisingly sneers at much of surf and skateboard culture. But in Ken Block, the petrolhead community has the most credible of crossovers.
Block, one of the founders of giant skate shoe company DC shoes, and has competed as a skateboarders, a snowboarder as well as a motocross rider. But after DC was bought out by even bigger surf brand Quiksilver in 2004, Ken decided to go racing full time.
Right from the start, it was apparent that block was the real deal. Not only is he a brilliant precision driver, his hard-won skinny on the yoof marketing racket has created a groundbreaking set of youtube block-busters (no pun intended), that has set the revhead world alight.
Props go out to the technical quality of this, the second instalment of the Gymkhana series, as well as our Ken’s preternatural dexterity behind the wheel. Super technical skate videos are difficult enough to put together, with endless takes required to make the subjects look like superheroes.
Who knows how long it took to put this balletic beauty on the WWW?
