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Recorded history places the commercial arrival of Independent in Northern California at the Newark Pro Bowl contest in June 1978. Now backtrack about 12 months to the initial development and riding of a full-suspension slalom truck, along with a few loose meetings in Santa Cruz and San Francisco to pinpoint its actual conception. Four men met to talk about a better skateboard truck. They stumbled upon an indelible brand.

The key ingredients were two motorcycle race mechanics, two guys with a skateboard company, a handful of renowned team riders, and a powerful icon. The founders were innately skilled at promotion, distribution, and product design and production. Perfect time, perfect mix, perfect recipe for success or perhaps disaster. But Independent prevailed; though unknown at the time, it would become the focal point of a subcultural movement and shape skateboarding as we know it today.

Independent came on like an electrical storm-low and buzzing. It seemed suddenly to have always been there, rolling in like a slow fog, creeping into skateboarding at a time when something dark just felt necessary. It felt like the color black. It was dirty, leathery, and raw. It felt illegal and greasy. If you hung your head over the fence of the Newark keyhole pool that day, you could just feel things begin to change. Whispers and rumors circulated in the bleachers; shadowy figures distributed stuff from the trunk of a beat-up car. Who were these guys, who was riding the trucks, what did the name and logo mean? It was just too much to swallow.

The team's moves were powerful that day, and not coincidentally. The guys riding the trucks were just so far ahead, achieving the first frontside roll-in on vert, the beginnings of the frontside layback, and the first handplant ever. For the first time in competition, tricks were happening above the lip and outside the bowl. And in transcending the physical restraints of their terrain, the skateboarders simultaneously liberated themselves from the confines of the skateboarding industry at the time.

Skateboarding was at a crossroads. As freestyle skating and slalom racing gasped their last breaths, the future vertical pool skating loomed large. Seemingly overnight, the boards got fatter, the trucks got wider, and the moves got bolder. Very few companies could meet demands for better products. Container loads of skateboard product and hundreds of pro skateboarders became obsolete.

As our heads spun, trying to digest what we were witnessing that day at the Newark pool, we became vulnerable to a new force in skateboarding. Independent slapped the sport in a better direction; it freed us from structure and team jerseys. Skateboarding was a virgin before that. It went in drinking soda and left the place with booze. Like the first smoke you actually enjoy, Independent enters your veins and never quite filters itself out. Skateboarding went underground that day. Independent had arrived. B.D. -Built to Grind, 25 Years of Hardcore Skateboarding