{"id":36430,"date":"2023-01-06T19:02:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T02:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/action-sports-icon-ken-block-dies-in-snowmobile-crash-at-55\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:31:10","slug":"action-sports-icon-ken-block-dies-in-snowmobile-crash-at-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/action-sports-icon-ken-block-dies-in-snowmobile-crash-at-55\/","title":{"rendered":"Action sports icon Ken Block dies in snowmobile crash at 55"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Skateboarders
Skateboarders cheer as DC Shoes President Ken Block, center, wearing black shirt, smiles after pledging $1 million to support skateboarding in Philadelphia's LOVE Park on June 1, 2004. Block, the co-founder of DC Shoes and a pro rally driver who won multiple medals at the X-Games, died Monday, Jan. 2, 2023, in a snowmobiling accident near his home in Park City, Utah, authorities said. Block was 55. (AP Photo\/Jacqueline Larma, File)<\/span>JACQUELINE LARMA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SALT LAKE CITY \u2013 Ken Block, a motor sports icon known for his stunt driving and for co-founding the action sports apparel brand DC Shoes, died on Monday in a snowmobiling accident near his home in Utah.<\/p>\n

Block, 55, \u201cwas riding a snowmobile on a steep slope when the snowmobile upended, landing on top of him,\u201d the Wasatch County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a statement. The incident occurred in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and he was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Block, who grew up in Southern California, was a co-founder of DC Shoes, a manufacturer of skateboarding and snowboarding shoes and apparel that in 2004 was purchased by Quicksilver for $84 million.<\/p>\n

Afterward, he rose to fame as a rally car driver and in 2005 was awarded Rally America’s Rookie of the Year honors. He won multiple medals at the X Games and also competed in other action sports, including motocross, snowboarding and skateboarding.<\/p>\n

Block’s most lasting imprint on action sports may perhaps be his marketing prowess: his YouTube stunt-driving videos showing him navigating difficult terrain and human-made obstacles have garnered more than 1 billion views.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe created an industry,\u201d Steve Arpin, Block\u2019s Hoonigan Racing teammate told<\/a> ESPN.<\/p>\n

Hoonigan, the Park City-based team that Block founded, called Block \u201ca visionary, a pioneer and an icon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will be incredibly missed,\u201d the organization said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skateboarders cheer as DC Shoes President Ken Block, center, wearing black shirt, smiles after pledging $1 million to support skateboarding in Philadelphia's LOVE Park on June 1, 2004. Block, the co-founder of DC Shoes and a pro rally driver who won multiple medals at the X-Games, died Monday, Jan. 2, 2023, in a snowmobiling accident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1792],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-snow-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83341,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430\/revisions\/83341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36430"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}