Torque was a company out of Atlanta run by Thomas Taylor. Taylor was an am for Schmitt Stix back in the day. He runs Stratosphere skateboard shop, too. His son, Grant, is pro for Alien Workshop and has to be one of the most well rounded skaters out there today.
The photos are credited to Alf Elder.
Slap - April 1996 Volume 5 Number 4
13 comments:
Thomas went pro for Schmitt.
^
really? I never remember seeing a Thomas Taylor pro model.
Yeah, I don't remember a board either. When he would have had the chance to be pro was right when New Deal was starting.
I can't say for sure, but I would believe he had one with his name on it for Troque.
Torque.
I don't think they gave him a board. Schmitt turned a lot of folks pro without giving them decks. This would have been a year or two before before New Deal in the Steve Douglas Crystal Palace era.
I think Templeton also went pro for Schmitt Stix and didn't get a deck.
http://skate.ly/library/ads/schmitt-stix-ed-templeton-1989
Good point about Schmitt not giving out pro models. I don't think Ed ever had a pro model until he got to New Deal, which would have been right about that same time.
Did Thomas do well enough in the am finals to earn pro status? That was pretty much standard practice backk then. Skate the NSA Finals well and you get to be a pro.
Grant rips bigtime---I can only hope my Son (now 7) can even come as close. But I will say, he can shred (was doing fakies on the 9 foot 1/4 at the local park at age 4) but alas, he pushes mongo--LOL.
I don't really remember Taylor from any NSA final contests back then.
lol @ sammy's post! Anyone can grow out of mongo pushing... just gotta put in the effort to learn the proper way at some point. Natas started out pushing mongo. And I did as well. Makes for a killer switch push.
Huffy sure does comment a lot on the blog status. Geez, you'd think he'd be out filming for the Real video.
Thomas Taylor never was pro for Schmitt Stix. He entered a pro contest while riding for New Deal. I didn't think things worked out for him there with his new status so he started Crime Skateboards. A few years later he started Torque.
he was never pro, he quit new Deal when they were about to turn him pro. He had some beef with Steve Douglas. He definately never had a board cuz his joke was that he was gonna make a Torque board that was his first pro model/retirement model but the company ended before that happened
He entered a pro contest without the consent of New Deal.
Habitat's Danny Garcia started out pushing mongo as well. Nothing wrong with a little mongo, worked for Bill Danforth right?
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