Their road thrill puts them flat on their backs

"I take a lot of anti-fear drugs," jokes Roland Morrison of Deerfield, N.J., through his scarred black helmet. At 43, he's the oldest in the pack; the youngest is 15.

It's July, and the fourth in a series of six gravity games is taking place in Franklin (population 8,405), a town a half-hour north of Concord. Competitors from across New England, Virginia, and New Jersey arrive well before the noon start with their $50 entrance fee. On trailers and in the back of pickup trucks sit four-wheel speed decks with alloy bars and Kryptonics wheels.

Riders strap on their protective suits for a day of racing in 90-degree weather.

Three years ago, the organizer of the event, Tim Cayer, 40, of Loudon, placed a newspaper ad offering $100 for information leading to an empty road with a challenging grade.

Manual Road was once an access route for trucks heading to the town's water treatment plant. But the steep incline (a nearly 11 percent grade) proved hard on the heavy rigs, and the road was shut down. Soon, the oak, maple, and pine trees lining the pavement took over. Then in 2001, town officials agreed to let Cayer use the road for luging. He and a small crew of workers spent the entire summer clearing the debris.

"When we got here you couldn't even see the road," says Cayer, a former motorcycle racer who started Gravity Sports International in 2000, hoping to introduce to the area an alternative to other gravity sports such as snowboarding. He believes street luging will eventually become an international sport.

"I see gravity sports as the next big thing," Cayer says, standing at the bottom of the hill over a long table covered with luncheon meats and a tub of macaroni for racers to fuel up on before the first heat.

In a full blue leather suit, Jared Carr, 22, from Cornish, Maine, waits nearby for the battered rack truck to bring him to the starting line. Carr learned of street luging watching the X-treme Games on ESPN. "I wasn't very interested until me and a buddy decided to build a luge ourselves," said Carr, a student at the University of Maine at Orono.

Many of the boards, made from aluminum alloy, are nearly eight feet long and 16 inches wide. They can cost anywhere from $20 to $2,000.