Pooltoy II
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Here is a mat for Rincon regular Jason MacMurray.
It's been some time since I built a mat for Jason MacMurray. Jason is one of the old school (by which I mean the sold school of the new school) who cut his teeth riding Neumatics built by Dale Solomonson. Back when there weren't many of us riding mats and we all knew each other.
Jason got in on this run and immediately knew what he wanted. Being best friends with Andrew Buck, he has seen and heard all about my super-free-breather configuration in combination with the neg elastic rockered RB-JMC design and was all in! With Rincon as his local, a mat that holds a line whilst breaking out the tail and hailing ass down the line was just what he wanted. I already had dimensions for him so that was the easy part. He did come with octopuses (or octobodes if we want to get all fancy with the ancient Greek) drawn by his daughter to spice things up so stencils and dye were the order of the day.
Oh and he asked for a bungee which was a real surprise! However, you never know when you might end up in a pool so the leash option can be helpful.
I asked Jason about the name for his mat and he said:
“I think I am going to go with the seemingly uninspired ‘Pooltoy II’ for the nickname of the new white mat. The original Pooltoy was built by Dale and was the first mat that he produced that I know of that didn’t just have the rider’s initials. It took hours of conversations with him by both Andrew and me to convince him that he should allow us to give our mats nicknames. I’m not sure Dale ever thought Andrew and I were as funny as we think we are but we finally wore him down.
When Dale retired, I was on the waitlist for him to make me a much coveted white mat. He had a very limited amount of a superlight white material he made a few mats out of. I’m sure he thought I was not worthy or capable of the white mat, and he was right, no doubt, but again I wore him down. Though my skills weren’t there yet, I think Dale knew Andrew and I had a vision of where we could take the mats and it aligned with his.
Now, roughly 20 years later the coveted white mat is finally landing thanks to you. The mats are better than we could have dreamed of 20 years ago and I like to think I am finally worthy of such a tool. Plus, my daughter delivered with the artwork to remind us all not to take it too seriously. It’s just a highly tricked out Pooltoy.
Gracias”
That's perfect. I remember the original Neumatic Pooltoy so am personally stoked to add to the lineage.
Pooltoy II is en route as we speak so I am looking forward to hearing how things go. Maybe you'll be able to keep up with Andrew now, Jason!
Cheers
G