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Corporate Skateboarding Still Sucks:
By Westin Porter
westinjay@gmail.com
Joey Sandmire,
frontside 50-50
Joey Sandmire may not be a name you’re
familiar with now, but it’s definitely one you
should get used to hearing. The 17-year-old
out of Bingham was recently added to the
Blindside team, and travels with SK801 as
well. I recently met up with Sandmire and
his crew to sit down and pull wrists. Upon
arriving at his desired meeting spot, his friends
volunteered him to go skate a nearby rail. He
agreed and I followed them to the mysterious
spot. There, shaded between two buildings,
was a mammoth 11-stair with royal blue
handrails and a nasty kink. At first, I wasn’t
even sure that was the spot he wanted to skate
as he had not even pushed around to warm
up. Sandmire and his gang all took a minute
to kick away the debris that littered both the
runway and the landing, then he took his
place atop the gnarly, one-push runway and
began attempting to 50-50 the rail.
Sandmire has already made a name for
himself for his gnarliness and seemingly
fearless style of skateboarding, which is
exactly how T-Coy of Blindside described
him. “When someone rolls up to something,
there’s the tries where you know they’re just
gonna bail and check out the spot, and then
there’s the tries where you know that they’re
gonna nail it. I’ve never seen Joey roll up to
something and not have the look of ‘I’m gonna
Joey Sandmire, Local Skateboarder
fuckin’ stick this,’ and most of the time, he
does,” he says. T-Coy got Sandmire on the
skate shop’s A-team after just a few memorable
skate sessions. “I remember we went to
Westminster once to this stretched-out 13. It
has a shitty run-up and you have to swerve
into the rail. Joey just went for it, and taco’d
straight up and hit his chest on the rail. Then
he went for it again and stuck it. After that, we
went to the Bonneville ‘Big-Four’ and he just
varial-heeled it like it was no big deal. That’s
when I was like, ‘We gotta get this dude on.’”
It was clear to me as I watched Sandmire
continuously do work on this rail that the kid
grew up skating. One of the contributing
qualities to his shredder style is just how
comfortable he looks on a board. “Growing
up, my neighbor had a Walmart board that
I started riding, then my brother was like
‘Fuck that, we need to get you a real board.’”
Sandmire received his first “real” board on
his ninth birthday.
After continuous roll-ups, clutching his stomach
as he stalked back to his starting spot, it
became clear how out of his element he was
skating for an audience. In a skateboarding
world where dollar signs and brand
names are becoming valued more than the
Photo: A. Pastucha
unaffected roots from which the action sport
sprang, uninhibited skaters like Sandmire
are refreshing. Even when asked if there
was anyone he would call influential to his
skateboarding, Sandmire immediately fired off
a list of local homies: “Fuck yeah! Holland,
Brophy, Worm, Nick Hubbel, Sam.”
It wasn’t long before Sandmire stomped on a
perfect frontside 50-50, which he later told me
was his most memorable trick to date, “’cause
it just happened,” and handed out high-fives to
everyone present.
Even after watching him skate, I was still
having a hard time grasping his skill and
potential. I asked T-Coy where he thought
Sandmire ranked among all the up-andcomers
in the Salt Lake area. “I’d say he’s
towards the very top. He has so much
motivation in getting gnarly and just going
for it, that it’s not really a problem for him.
It looks like the tricks just come to him easy.
He’s super humble,” he says.
Watch for Sandmire tearing up your favorite
spot, and in SK801’s newest video to be
released this fall.
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