Tuesday 12 April 2016

What is Dune Riders International?

2 times back in October 2015, I quoted that Sandboarding didn't have a real institutionalised and established governing body for the world. However, I have done some valuable research and I have stumbled upon Dune Riders International, the website can be accessed by clicking here. I had no idea that Sandboarding had a world governing body and to be honest, I'm pretty happy about it! It's about time that Sandboarding finally got its break on the global stage and now I'm here to put forward this question: 'What is Dune Riders International?'

Well according to the Facebook Page, Dune Riders International is "the governing body for international amateur and professional competitive sandboarding." which makes DRI the only organisation to regulate Sandboarding in competitions. The headquarters for the DRI is in Sand Master Park in Oregon, which is also convenient as the Sand Master Park itself (which I have talked about quite a lot on this blog) hosts 2 of the events on the Dune Riders International World Tour.

The mission is to provide structure and support for the competitive and recreational aspects of Sandboarding, also according to the Director of D.R.I. himself, the primary focus is "the education of dune dynamics and conservation of the Earth's dune systems worldwide, with maintaining and improving the ecological health of the dunes for current and future generations." Another focus is to support and promote Sandboarding itself, with competitive and recreational as the motivation to share knowledge, benefits, and the love of sandboarding to any and all who have an interest.

To me, it sounds like that Dune Riders International is that forum section on a website where people share things, a bit like Reddit. I had never thought an organisation like this had existed and I'm pretty happy because it makes my job slightly less difficult as I'm here to promote Sandboarding too; before I conclude, I was very excited to discover that England has an association with Dune Riders International, I'm not too sure I've heard of the official body within this country itself but if you're reading this, Hi! Please get in touch! But it does beg the question why Wales, Scotland, and Ireland don't have associations (Well, maybe the whole UK is included but it's just England for simplicity).

To leave on a good note and to put some media in this post, here is a short clip (I mean, short.) of DRI Champion Gabriel Cruz on the local sand dunes at Sand Master Park (which relates to this post as Sand Master Park is the H.Q. of Dune Riders International.)


I would like to thank Lon Beale of Dune Riders International for the information to help build this article!

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