Donald Cassel started Grind King back in the day, in 1988 in Venice, California. What motivated him most to develop the original high-performance kingpin was the fact that, when he went grinding with his trucks, the kingpin would often get in the way and sometimes cause him to fall. Also, it became increasingly difficult to adjust the kingpin after the wear and tear of grinding. To keep up with modern skating, he developed the prototype of the inverted kingpin, which became "Grinding Kingpin" but shortened the name to Grind King.
