2B | SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2019 | SIUSLAW NEWS
Sand
from 1B
in California to helping to
create international com-
petitions throughout the
world.
Beale spoke on the his-
tory of sandboarding, the
culture surrounding it,
what it does and can do for
the future of Florence, the
globalization of the sport
and his own plans to bring
full sandboard manufac-
turing to the city.
“This is my motive: To
benefit as many people as
we can with what we have
to offer,” Beale said. “We
want to do a good job and
make sure everybody has a
great experience. They
enjoy sandboarding and
they love it. They want to
turn their friends on to it.
It’s healthy, it’s envi-
ro-friendly, it’s inexpen-
sive. There’s nothing bad to
say about it.”
Beale got his first taste of
sandboarding growing up
in the Mojave Desert.
“We would go out there
with the Boy Scouts and
play on the dunes,” he said.
“It was only natural that
you would try and slide
down with whatever you
could find: old cardboard,
a piece of wood, old skate-
boards. They didn’t work
very well, but it was still
fun.”
At the time, the sport of
sandboarding didn’t exist.
Instead, Beale got into the
surf industry, along with
the budding snowboarding
community.
“When I first started,
there was no snowboard-
ing, it wasn’t a thing. It
turned out to be a mil-
lion-dollar industry. The
whole time I’m thinking, ‘I
wonder when someone is
going to do something
with this sandboarding
thing, I’d sure like to see
someone do something.’
And we’d go to the trade
shows and look at all the
surfboards and snow and
such. I would just check
out the booths, see if any-
body had any sandboards.
They didn’t. It was kind of
an epiphany that, if it was
going to happen, it was
going to be up to me.”
So, Beale started looking
at what makes a good sand-
board design. He had
Little
from 1B
had just bought a new 175
Honda off /on road motor-
cycle. Two of my football
players asked if I wanted
to go riding.
My thought? “I bet I can
keep up with these two.”
We left my house in
Spray, Ore., around 9
a.m. We got back several
hours later. My new bike
had a busted tail light, a
bent front fender and a
motorcycle that no lon-
ger looked new. Th at’s be-
cause, as we raced down a
dirt road, I lost a bet as to
who could stop fi rst. My
bike stopped; I did not.
Th ey won.
In the spring of 1976,
my common sense must
have been hibernating.
I was in Spray’s dome-
shaped gym helping dec-
orate for the prom when I
was asked if I could attach
streamers to the ceiling. I
found a 10-foot stepladder
and thought “I bet I can
stand on the ‘Th is Is Not
A Step’ step.” Stretching
as high as possible, I was
able to staple a streamer.
Moving to the next loca-
tion and once again on the
top non-step, the ladder
buckled and I fell headfi rst
toward the gym fl oor.
I attempted to do a
already been working on
the concept, making his
first board in 1972, which
he displays at Sand Master
Park. The early boards
Beale and his crew made
were heavy, only able to do
5 miles per hour, tops.
“My partner at the time
was a nuclear physicist, a
chemical engineer who
worked for NASA for many
years,” Beale said. “He talks
about making boards on a
molecular level. Don’t look
at the board but look at the
atoms that are interacting
with each other.”
After constant rework-
ing, the boards were able to
get up to 40-50 miles per
hour.
“Waxes and lubricants
came into play. Over the
years the design of the
board got more and more
maneuverable. I think that
caught people’s attention.
Now, it wasn’t just kids
sliding down the dune that
you try once. Now, it looks
like snowboarding. Those
guys are really moving, and
they’re maneuvering well.
People want to do that.”
By 1991, they were able
to get into the production
of the boards, producing
200-300 boards a year.
“We were selling a lot of
boards out of the country,
because people who want-
ed to sandboard — if they
didn’t make their own
board — there was no
other place they could buy
a sandboard except from
us. We had a monopoly on
it. So, we got a lot of atten-
tion real fast,” Beale said.
But not a ton. The clien-
tele was still niche, catering
to pockets of sandboarding
enthusiasts without any
real organization. Parks
like Sand Master were still
years away; the key to mak-
ing sandboarding a world-
wide sport was in the inter-
net.
“In 1995, one of my
friends said we should have
a website,” Beale said. “I
wasn’t real into it, more
into print ads. And I didn’t
really comprehend the
power the internet had to
spread the word. So, I got
online and started looking
for sandboarding. Zero
hits. Nothing. I said ‘Okay,
the most valuable website
would be sandboard.com.’ I
bought it and put the web-
push-up from 10 feet. My
glasses were the only thing
broken from the fall. A
butterfl y bandage stopped
the bleeding and X-rays
revealed no broken bones.
However, I did strug-
gle driving without power
steering in my pick-up.
In 1977, on my fi rst day
in Florence, “I bet I could
jump over the chain-link
fence on my way to the
practice football fi eld.”
Instead, I hit the fence
and fell on my back in the
grass beyond. I jumped
up as if not hurt but I was
wrong. I was given a ride
to the emergency room
and unceremoniously en-
tered the halls of Siuslaw
High School assisted with
crutches the next day.
A few weeks later while
teaching, a student, Rocky,
saw my pick-up with my
motorcycle in the back.
He asked me to go riding
on the sand dunes.
Th e following Saturday,
I was fl ying through the
sand when I thought “I
bet I can jump that small
sand mound and land in
wet sand. Th e front wheel
was instantly buried, caus-
ing me to fl y over the han-
dlebars. I hit both of my
thighs and bruises formed
from my knees to my hips.
Th e next Saturday, I
took my motorcycle to
site up.”
From that point on, it
took off around the world.
Beale found little pockets
of sandboarders here in
Florence — people who
had been doing it for a cou-
ple of years.
“They were so excited to
finally find a sandboard
site. They gravitated toward
us,” said Beale. “From
there, it went worldwide.
Now it’s just a racehorse. I
can’t even keep up with
what’s going on out there.”
They started demoing
the boards around the
country and Mexico. Car
and beverage companies
were contacting them to
have sandboarding in their
commercials.
“They were making a
handful of money, and that
was very attractive to the
guys,” Beale said.
In 1998, ESPN was doing
a festival in the Florence
area and asked Beale to do
a demo for sandboarding.
It’s then that he found the
Oregon Dunes.
“The sand here is some
of the best in the world," he
said. “When the opportu-
nity came to come up here
and start a sandboard park
— the first of its kind — we
jumped on it.”
That was in 2000. At the
time, he didn’t know if the
project would be a success.
The Siuslaw News did an
article on him, as did the
Oregonian, which he
hoped would generate
some interest. They put a
sign on the highway hop-
ing someone would come.
“Within 15 minutes,
every board was rented,”
Beale said. “We couldn’t
keep enough boards in the
store. For the first five sea-
sons, we were just doubling
our numbers to keep up
with the demand. Now we
keep about a hundred rent-
als in the store through the
summer. That’s been a real
blessing.”
A common comparison
that’s made to sandboard-
ing is snowboarding. The
website Eugene Cascade
Coast says about the sport,
“Snowboarders, have you
tried sandboarding yet?
This unique, exhilarating
board sport shares many of
the same elements of snow-
boarding and surfing, but
instead of snow or waves
Warrenton and gave it to
my brother. He was mar-
ried with two children so
his common sense brain
was probably functioning
better than mine.
In 1978, the track pro-
gram stored its equipment
in the gym. Aft er baseball
practice one late aft er-
noon, “I bet I can jump
onto the pole vault land-
ing pads from the railing
of the basketball bleach-
ers.” While in mid-fl ight,
the gym door opened and
looking at me was Vice
Principal Dave Rankin.
He immediately left but
I was at school the fol-
lowing morning to meet
with him and promised
to never do it again. Espe-
cially since there had been
a baseball player jumping
with me.
Th at summer, a storage
shed was built to hold the
track equipment.
Not all “I bet I can”
moments involve physi-
cal risks. As with my gym
jumping event, my future
as a teacher was at risk.
Next week, I will ad-
dress other risks taken
by competitive athletes.
Th ere are times when
these “I bet” moments
can have negative conse-
quences on their future
and their fi nancial well
being.
VOICE YOUR OPINION! — Write a Letter to the
Editor today: Editor@TheSiuslawNews.com
— all you need is sand!”
In actuality, sandboard-
ing is more aligned with
surfing.
One big difference lies in
the time it takes for each
specific ride. Snowboarders
are used to traversing areas
that are 10,000 feet in
height, allowing for longer
rides and requiring differ-
ent skill sets. But the dunes
in Florence are only a few
hundred feet in height.
“You’re not going to get a
long run,” Beale said. “If
you are bombing it, you
can probably get a minute,
minute and a half on a run.
If you’re actually travers-
ing, you get more time.”
Because of that differ-
ence, surfing, with its four-
to 10-second runs, is a
more apt comparison.
“And just like surfing,
every ride in, they paddle
out. Well for us, every ride
down, we hike back up,”
said Beale.
And the culture is more
aligned to surfing as well.
“you’re out there in the
sun and a lot of the dunes
are by the beach, the waves
are there. You kind of have
that whole ‘one-with-na-
ture’ attitude out there,
where in snow, you’re all
bundled up. We don’t need
to protect ourselves from
the kind of temperatures.
We just go out in our
shorts, barefoot with a
T-shirt. It’s very pleasant.”
But the one way that
sandboarding differs from
surfing is the lack of inter-
est in competition. While
snowboarding has become
an Olympic sport, and
surfing competitions have
become
a
mainstay
throughout the Pacific
Ocean shorelines, sand-
boarders just don’t seem
interested.
At first, it appeared the
reason was the sport wasn’t
mature enough. Twenty-
five years ago, alt sports
organization X-Games
contacted Beale about add-
ing sandboarding to the
lineup.
“We said, that’s wonder-
ful, but the sports not there
yet. Most of the people
couldn’t even find a sand-
board. This was back in the
early days. Where would
you even find these ath-
letes? We didn’t know how
long it was going to take,
because we weren’t out
there yet.”
The sport did grow, but
there were distinct cultures
surrounding it. In South
America, sandboarding
competition is booming.
(Editor’s Note: In Part II
this Wednesday, the expo-
nential growth of the sport
in South America and, most
recently, Saudi Arabia.)
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