Photos by Raffael Bracke and Jo Van Esbrock
10 years ago we had this little idea to do a small contest to save some money to build new obstacles…
Fast forward to 2026 and suddenly it’s our 10th anniversary! Just like our small DIY-park, the contest grew a little bigger and now has its infamous reputation of ‘not caring’ about big money prices or famous riders or anything like all these boring corporate events. The idea is still the same after all these years: Just enjoy a day of skateboarding with your friends with some good music and some cold drinks, period!
Thanks to our impressive roster of sponsors we still have a lot of goodies to offer to motivate the skaters to do some crazy tricks. A lot of stuff went down: Tor Van Eysendeyck used the little launch ramp Maarten built to clear the volcano with the barrel on top of it! Toon Dierckx came up with the idea to use the fence of the sports park as the new coping of the skatepark. Nathan de Maeyer skated all the obstacles like a maniac all day long and went home with the ‘skater of the day’-award/deck.
The sun burned al little harder as it should in May so the people behind the bar, had to work a little harder too. Big thanks to all these volunteers who come to do the job every year! Even our mayor got involved again and served cool drinks to the thirsty ladies and gents.
Photo by Jo Van Esbroeck
To celebrate a decade of ‘Trukentroef’ our friends in Slinghot Bikini came by to play some awesome live surf music, a perfect soundtrack for more shredding on the renewed rail and ledge: Tor sliding the whole thing upwards and Jelle Andriessen doing a rare frontside boardslide all the way were some of the highlights. We also did a session on the steep corner with the blue poolcoping where tricks were landed as if it was just a small quarterpipe (not!): Pieter de Clus even landed a pivot fakie grind through the whole corner. Ratman showed up and teached us why poolcoping is the only one that matters together with his friend Rob (Crustskates).
After all the best tricks it was time again for our ‘big’ bowljam: We did some challenges and asked for the longest 50-50, highest air etc. People took that way too serious and Jeroen Bruggeman grinded further than you can imagine, Nathan probably aired higher than last year and the Tor and Tony show was on another level. Always good to see Babz from Brussels and local guys like Tsjorven and Thibault jumpin’ in too!
The remaining goodies went in the bowl for our annual tombola time, while the Tequila Tattoo crew had a busy day too, just like the yardkeepers who were flippin’ burgers again to maintain their indoor DIY park in Turnhout. Our vinyldeejays kept the session going for some old dogs who tried to open their small bag of tricks once more. Sun went down and then it was time to start the afterparty at the local youth club. We had ‘’Öttego’ who came all the way from Zwolle (NL) to sing about stranglin’ Nazis, we had local ska-punk heroes ‘the Rabids’ who played some ‘Operation Ivy’ classics. ‘Gull House’ from Diest showed us why they also get asked to play at bigger festivals with their noisy but fun punksound and the icing on the cake -just like every year- was ‘Prince Beastly’, probably still the best band on the planet.
Now let’s go to Eleven (just like in ‘Spinal Tap’) see you all next year for the start of a second decade of ‘Trukentroef’!!
Photo by Jo Van Esbroeck
