About Max Dubler

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Emily “The Prossecutor” Pross

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Emily Pross is a 21 year old professional downhill skateboarder from New Jersey.

Despite the helmet, she doesn’t joke around on the racetrack.

Emily showed up on the downhill scene in 2014 and took it by storm. She almost immediately dethroned the reigning women’s world champion and has maintained an iron grip on the women’s division ever since. Looking for a bigger challenge and the respect of the male racing elite, she set her sights on the male-dominated “open” class in 2015 and has been making steady progress.

Like every other sport, downhill skateboard racing favors a certain body type. Most top skateboard racers are tall men with long legs for an explosive push, narrow shoulders for aerodynamics, and weight around 185lbs to carry momentum.

Photo by Alex Charleson

As a woman of average height, Emily faces a steep disadvantage due to her body type that she overcomes with a combination of hard training, aggression, and strategy. An extremely fierce and motivated competitor, Emily weight-trains hard in the off-season to build muscle and be heavy enough to compete with male riders. Careful drafting and racing strategy allow her to overcome the limitations of her push start. Her aggressive riding style keeps other riders from racing dirty. Getting beaten by Emily is so common that racers have a name for it: getting Prossecuted.

 

Killington Throwdown 2016

 

A top-ten finisher in the 2016 world rankings, Emily became the first woman to win a major open-class race earlier this year, when she took first place at the Mount Jefferson Downhill race in North Carolina. She has continued to have strong race showings through the rest of the season, maintaining her dominance of the women’s division and putting up a few open-class podium finishes. The jury is still out on whether Emily’s aggressive race tactics are a good match for Maryhill, but we know the Prossecution will not rest until she’s world champion.

 

1st place at Showdown at the Loops 2016, Women’s Skateboard

 

Emily races with the support of IXO boards; Berkeley College; Daddiesboardshop; G-form; R.A.D wheels; Ronin Trucks; Hondar; Harfang; Atopic

 

Text and racing by Maxwell Storey Dubler. Portrait by Alex Charleson.

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Maryhill Loops Road: Easy To Ride, Hard to Master

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Maryhill Loops Road is one of the most iconic tracks in gravity sports. Two miles long, with nearly twenty turns on a five percent grade, the road has hosted World Cup races for many years and was the site of the IGSA World Championship race in 2007.

When it was first raced in 2001, Maryhill was an extremely challenging track that pushed riders and their gear to the limits of performance as they tried to make it around the corners without sliding out and crashing.

Subsequent advancements in equipment and technique have made it much easier to ride faster, more technical tracks that require aggressive braking for corners. Nowadays Maryhill, with its relatively low speeds and wide, grippable corners, is regarded as a beginner-friendly hill where good riders go to fool around. As other race hills have come and gone, Maryhill remains a consistently challenging race track.

The fact that Maryhill is relatively easy to ride makes it incredibly difficult to race. Downhill races consist of two parts: timed individual runs to establish starting position followed by head-to-head racing. Timed qualifying is very competitive, with the entire 96-person stand up bracket running within a few seconds of each other. Head-to-head racing is even more challenging, demanding perfect form as you negotiate hairpin turns in a tight pack of competitors. There is no room for error: one wrong move can send you to the back of the pack or over a small cliff.

In addition to perfect form, doing well at Maryhill requires an intimate understanding of racing strategy, aerodynamics, and the physics of speed. Gravity sports depend heavily on aerodynamics and drafting to maintain speed and make passes. Maryhill often has downhill winds everywhere except the straightaway into the final corner, where the road switches back on itself and the tailwind becomes a headwind. Experienced racers will attempt to stay in second place all the way down the hill and attack in the final moments before the finish line for a dramatic last-second victory.

While the demand for strategic and technical perfection frustrates riders who are stronger on faster tracks that require braking, Maryhill continues to draw the best downhill athletes from around the globe to the easiest track to ride, but the hardest race to win.