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Indian Harbor Beach Skateboard Park IHB Skatepark, Indian Harbor Beach, FL 1977-1981 By
Tim Ebaugh Indian Harbor Beach Skatepark (IHB) was located on South Patrick drive in Indian Harbor Beach, a small beachside community just south of Patrick Air Force Base and Satellite Beach in Brevard County. The park opened in the early summer of 1977 and was Brevard County’s second concrete skatepark, popping up shortly after the demolition of Cocoa’s Paved Wave. The park was built by the Rowlette family of Meritt Island and managed by Sally Rowlette who also was the manager of the IHB skate team. IHB featured a long 10ft. high surf-style snake run, with a nice steep take off to gain some serious speed, culminating in a large flat freestyle flanked by different size banks on all sides. There was also a large inside “bowl” that was good for a long carve or two, but with only 60 to 70 degree banking it quickly was forgotten by the serious skaters. Sometime in late 1977, The Lake brothers (Mark, Tim, Steve, Billy), all carpenters and expert ramp builders teamed up to add a vert ramp extension to the west wall in the middle of the snake run. That sucker was pretty intimidating, about 6 feet higher than the top of the snake with four solid feet of vert! Skaters would line up at the top of the snake’s east wall (all the IHB walls had a nice two-feet wide rounded lips) get a few good pushes in, drop down and hit the ramp. The coping at the top of the high section was 16 feet off the ground! Some of the local rippers that frequented IHB were: Jim McCall, Bruce Walker, Greg Meischeid, Mark Lake, Glen Klugel, Jeff Klugel, Matt Kechele, Pat Mulhern, and IHB team members Guy Hoffman, Mark Springer, Bobby Huffman, Mark Isley, Paul Patala, Tim Comella, Casey Chimelinski, Tim Ebaugh and Ken Campbell. Some of the most outrageous maneuvers on the ramp were Mark Lake’s axle drops and elevators off the high side as well as his inverts and flips, Tim Lake’s insane suicide drops and backside airs, Paul Patala’s inverts, Jim McCall and Mark Springer with frontside airs. Probably the most insane move was Casey Chimelinski’s frontside flyaways. Casey would launch from the coping, fly off the high side of the ramp, sail about nine feet and land halfway down, on the corner of the original snake run wall! Many California pros also visited IHB, one such weekend visit included Stacy Peralta, Tom Inouye, and Gregg Weaver. (Note from Tim Ebaugh: I apologize if I’ve left anyone out, with age the memory fails. I remember always seeing photographers {Mike Cassidy?} snapping photos at IHB, especially the vert ramp. If anyone has any of these photos, please send a digital copy to steve@floridaskater.com for inclusion on this page!) Alas, IHB locked it’s gates in late ’80 due to insurance reasons and the general lull in skateboarding at that time. Before the park was leveled in 1981, contractors came in and poured “speed bumps” of rough concrete throughout the park to keep “outlaw skaters” from sneaking in and skating..……(see the following story).
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