If you looked at the title of this article and went “I have to see this” you are definitely not alone. But before you get your panties all in a bunch, the video you are about to watch isn’t exactly the type that’s gonna have you on the edge of your seat. Inventor Joshua Tulberg put his motorized skateboard, the Gnarboard Trail Rider, up against a beast of a machine, a C5 Chevrolet Corvette in a series of 75-foot drag races. It’s not exactly an Olympic 100 yard dash, but work with us.
While the Trail Rider posted some impressive numbers for a motorized skateboard, it usually only took the 75 feet before the C5 was getting up in that ass. With four 850-watt electric motors making 3.4 kW of power, the board will get up to 28 mph, which just happens to be it’s top speed, in 1.9 seconds. Riders typically will have anywhere from a 13-15 mile range, coming from a 2 hour battery charge. A truck damping system keeps speed wobbles to a minimum and softens the roll over rocks and dirt when off-roading.
The Trail Rider didn’t have much difficulty beating the C5 off the blocks, but the Corvette had little problems catching up. C5’s usually come out of the shop with close to 350hp, and that’s on the low end. At the end of 75 feet, The Trail Rider and C5 pretty much tied on every race.
If you’re interested in purchasing one of these bad boys, Gnarboard’s Kickstarter page is taking pre-orders starting at $2,900 for the brand’s base model, which will be released in November. The Trail Rider model that is featured in the video is a little more pricey, with a price around $4,000 and will be delivered in March 2013.
Tulberg’s advice for riding one: “squeeze the trigger very slowly.” There’s hope for some of us, though. “If you’re familiar with riding skateboards, then you just have to get familiar with controlling this kind of power,” Tulberg says.
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