Getting a dynamic object's velocity to behave like it's rolling I have been working on a skateboarding game. Until this point the character/board have been controlled by a control cube with it's physics set to dynamic. Alignment is done with rays depending on if it's on the ground or in the air and how high. The problem with this of course is the player slides rather than rolls. I have tried a few different ways of adding multipliers to the linear velocity with terrible, unrealistic results.

Recently I have been using vertex parents for a few other things in the game. I didn't understand these when first setting up the control cube, but now I am thinking it should be possible to use a rigid body cylinder or sphere as the "control cube". However, my initial testing is not going well. It seems like I would need to calculate the forces to be applied on the global access, instead of local, which is beyond my mathematical ability.

So my question is, is there a better way to do this? Is there a magical formula that will help me calculate the proper rolling type forces on the dynamic object?  Should I scrap the dynamic object and use a different physics type? Any other suggestions or completely obvious solutions I'm missing?

Additionally, I played with a few car scripts a while ago and couldn't extract anything useful. My player also walks, so I need to switch the behavior back and forth.
I was able to get some really nice results using physics simulations! Rigid body constraints set to both front and back axles on hinge mode provided the necessary pivot. 



Make sure you enable linked collision to avoid crazy issues with your shocks!
I made a fancy test file, complete with board riding monkey for your entertainment. Please wear a helmet when riding.