A couple of weeks ago we ventured to Holly Springs, North Carolina to join Nikita Ducarroz on a project to revamp her training facility at DDASC. Today we’re sharing details about her vision and what she hopes to achieve with this new setup.
Hey Nikita! Could you tell us how this opportunity to redesign DDASC came to be and those who supported this vision?
In order to stay current with the World Cup events, we had been trying to upgrade the park when possible so that we could ride similar features we would be competing on. In addition to that, as a now 2-year resident at the facility, I had a lot of requests from the top female riders to come out and train with us there in order to push their progression. Merging those two needs, I came up with the idea of revamping the park to have everything we needed for the upcoming season and to learn new tricks, as well as the concept of making it all about the women, and bringing them in for different training camps and events throughout the year! I was super fortunate that Red Bull was super on board for this and made the vision come to life so we could elevate women’s riding even more!
I understand you’ve rebuilt the park to fit your training needs, what were the asks and the changes that were made?
So the biggest thing was to integrate resi back into the park while also making everything rideable if we chose to take it off as well so we could switch back to wood right before events. We made a few other small changes on the inside such as a taller lip on the box, wider big spine, making the quarters taller… etc. For the outside, we completely changed it and added features we’ve been really missing at the park such as hips, a landing – landing box, a spox, and some 10ft quarters.
I understand there was a big desire to use birch, what’s the story behind this?
For the birch, I just like how clean it looks and feels (a lot of the parks I ride in Europe are birch) and also thought it would help give the park a facelift. With the shortage of wood, we couldn’t do the entire park yet but plan to do so in the near future!
What was your inspiration for the use of greys and triangles on the walls and features?
Again it had a lot to do with just making it look completely different, as well as how we could brighten it up inside since it’s always been a big dark park. We figured it would help a lot when we are filming too. I’ve always loved that style of design (I did a wall in my house that way) after seeing it on Pinterest haha.
Who was everyone that was involved in the remodelling the park
There were so many people involved! My team manager of course doing all the hard work behind the scenes to make the vision come to life. We had Daniel Dhers on board with a lot of good input from all his years of experience and just knowing how to fit what we needed in that space. John is someone we all know and has built at the park before so that was a perfect fit! Lastly, we had the lady crew (Cory Coffey, Angie, and Bea) who came in the final week and put a lot of work in to help me get everything painted and looking fresh!
When can the public ride the new build?
So we decided to go ahead with doing the build at the DDASC facility instead of a private building so we could all enjoy the ramps and to keep everyone together under one roof! So YES! It’s still open to the public for anyone and everyone to come have a session, just check @ddasc to get the hours they are open.
What’s next for the park and for you?
Well after we get back from this next World Cup, the hope is to have some more women come visit and train with me, as well as to begin planning some fun weeks where we will bring them in for performance camps, social media training, mental health awareness activities and more! We also hope to have the park progress with us as the years go on so we can continue to push the sport!
