Block cofounded DC Footwear again in 1994 along with his good friend Damon Manner. Collectively they constructed the model into an enormous success, supporting athletes throughout the sports activities world, together with supercross and motocross riders like Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael, and Travis Pastrana. Block himself was a longtime moto fanatic and a daily customer to the races, and he was with us on the bottom ground when Racer X launched as {a magazine} in 1998. Ten years after founding the corporate, in 2004, Block and Manner offered DC Footwear to Quiksilver.
Block then turned his consideration to rally automobile racing, which he found by his friendship with Pastrana, who was additionally heading in that path. Based on Automotive and Driver he gained 23 rally races on the Nationwide stage, and solely narrowly misplaced the 2022 American Rally Championship. However Block didn’t simply construct expertise behind the wheel as a race automobile driver. Utilizing advertising and manufacturing methods from the skate/snowboard/moto world, Block constructed his Hoonigan model into one other huge success, and his standard line of Gymkhana movies and X Video games exploits grew to become world manufacturers in their very own proper. Block embraced YouTube and social media in its earliest days, making automobiles cool to a complete new technology. Ken took rally automobile racing, which had all the time been merely a fringe a part of automotive tradition in America, proper into the guts of the fanatic market. Auto producers and large sponsors received on board, however Ken stored his action-sports roots, all the time staying near his motocross beginnings. In accordance, he would incorporate Pastrana into loads of his movies, typically with Travis on a dust bike and different instances in a automobile—and typically each—which we placed on the quilt of Racer X on two events. Simply final month, Pastrana did the driving for Hoonigan’s Gymkhana 2022. In a brand new video sequence, Block’s 16-year-old daughter, Lia, places the 1985 Audi Quattro she had constructed by its paces, similar to her dad.
An inspiration and a task mannequin throughout the board, Ken Block’s contributions to motorsports and motion sports activities won’t ever be forgotten.
