The covered fingerboarding park at Pendry Park City was unusually loud Saturday afternoon with the clacking of miniature skateboards hitting the wooden park.
Fingers flicked colorful boards over stairs and along rails of the Blackriver park, almost doubled in size this summer with the addition of a second table.
To celebrate the park’s expansion, Pendry hosted their first contest called Game of State, open for youth and adults of all skill levels to compete for free, with $3,000 worth of Blackriver prizes — like wooden fingerboards, park features, trucks and wheels — available to win.
Over 30 people showed up that evening, five youth competitors and more than 15 adults, the rest family and friends.
Two competitors, Evan Smith and his friend Blade Blanken, also manned their vendor booth, a handmade fingerboarding company named Hard Press.
“(These are) old skateboards that I sanded down, made super thin, pressed them into boards and then blanks, completes,” said Smith, the founder. “I was on and off doing this for the last six years.”
Blanken explained the benefit of using wooden fingerboards instead of more-common plastic Tech Decks.
“The pop is just a little better. They’re designed a little bit more realistic, like actual skateboards,” he said, pointing out some on which he had done custom drawings.
The two had driven up the hill from their homes in Cottonwood Heights to compete and sell some boards.
Others drove farther, like Dallin Gardiner and partner Kiara Williamson from Magna, after hearing about the event through a fingerboarding group called 801 fingerboarding.
Gardiner, a skater, had started fingerboarding after breaking a knee two years ago.
“Ever since then, it’s like, I really want to skate and hit those tricks, but I just — it’s not the same. I’m not trying to do that again,” he said with a laugh. “So this is a nice way to find the middle ground, try that stuff without getting hurt.”
801 fingerboarding organizers Clark Checketts and Ethan Alvey attended, spreading the word on their social platforms. Their group of fingerboarders has grown in the years since they started the first organized fingerboarding group in northern Utah.
Checketts had seen competitions and meetups in other states but nothing near his home in Ogden. So he put out a Facebook post, and three people showed up with their significant others, he said.
And the next one had 10 people.
“It just started growing by word of mouth, social media,” Checketts said.
He met Alvey at one of their meetups, who offered to help run the group with his background in organizing events. Now they host competitions four times a year.
“We try to make them feel really inviting to any skill level. So people can come. It’s free, and we never charge for entry,” said Checketts.
But Saturday afternoon at Pendry wasn’t an 801 fingerboarding event.
“This was especially cool and momentous for us because we’ve been pushing hard ourselves, and it’s been fun, but it’s obviously a lot of work,” said Checketts. “This was the first time that someone else was like, ‘Hey, I want to host an event.’”
Because it wasn’t their event, it was also the first time in a while that Checketts and Alvey could also compete.
Brian Bevacqua, Compass Sports’ recreation manager and host of the competition, announced the matchups and explained the rules. The event’s bracket-style play involved matching tricks: When one player landed a trick, the other had two attempts to land it themselves. In the early rounds, the first to spell out “SK8” would lose, then “SKATE” in later matchups.
Both brackets had a three-way final, and appreciative cheers applauded extra-difficult tricks.
While much of the group was connected through 801 fingerboarding, some were locals who had just stumbled on the park.
Twelve-year-old Parkites Ford Walsh and Jackson Olson had e-biked over, only recently discovering the fingerboarding park so close to home. The event was their first competition, and both walked away with a prize.
“One of the things that I’m really big on is the next generation,” said Bevacqua. “I really like when the younger kids are getting in here and working on these tricks and being able to come back.”
After winners were announced, most stayed to keep playing and wait out the late-summer thunderstorm at the covered park.
The Blackriver fingerboarding park at Pendry Park City, located outside of Compass Sports at 2417 W High Mountain Road, is open to the public. Learn more about 801 fingerboarding and their upcoming events on Instagram @801fingerboarding.
“It feels like it’s really starting to catch on. People are noticing how cool it is,” Alvey said.