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Larry Balma and Dave Dominy conceived their idea for a real skateboard truck and precision bearings in 1973 while riding Cadillac wheels on the poorly performing roller skate trucks of the time period. By 1974, they’d had enough and set about designing their first truck with the mold maker Gary Dodds. They developed Tracker Trucks out in the wild at North County San Diego spots like the Escondido Reservoir, the Kona Bowl and La Costa for all to see and ride. Tracker released the Fultrack–the first truck designed by skateboarders for skateboarders–in 1975. The Tracker Fultrack was a complete departure from the roller skate trucks and the two other trucks that had just been designed for skateboarding: the Bahne all-steel truck and the Bennett Hijacker. Both of the latter were just slightly wider than standard roller skate hangers at 1 7/8”. Measuring a full 4 ¼” between the wheels, however, the all aluminum Tracker Fultrack dwarfed all other trucks. It only took a year for Tracker to become the biggest-selling skateboard truck in the world.
A host of Tracker product innovations, including A356 aluminum castings, the triangle-shaped face, the Gnarly pivot, the fixed kingpin, and the four-hole mounting pattern–to name just a few–created the very foundation of modern skateboard truck design and allowed Tracker to remain the biggest truck brand for the next 15 years. Over the decades, Tracker sponsored a huge all-star team that contained some of the most influential skateboarders of all time, including Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, Tony Hawk, Alan Gelfand, Rodney Mullen, Mark Gonzales, Neil Blender, Christian Hosoi, Steve Rocco, Rob Dyrdek, Jeremy Klein and hundreds more. Forty years of innovation later, Tracker continues to honor their pledge to bring you “Trucks You Can Trust.”