3rd Place at Red Bull FMX Battle, New Zealand

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 05:22

Red-Bull-FMX-battle-logo1 The Red Bull FMX Battle has been run and won in the small New Zealand north island town of Wanganui and it turned out to be one of the best run competitions in the Australasian region in many, many years.

The Red Bull FMX Battle was the brainchild of Mary Perkins who is Kiwi's only female freestyle rider to reach the heights of riding for the Crusty Demons tours. The concept was to make a Freestyle MX competition in Australasia appear more like a choreographed show than just the standard boring FMX comp.

28122009219copy It was mission accomplished as the show went off perfectly with the battle aspect taken care of with the guerilla fighters taking on the FMX riders as a helicopter brought in the two Australian riders, myself and Kain Saul. The riders were then announced and the competition begun.

During qualifying I had pinched my sciatic nerve while doing a Super Can Indy in the wind when I overstretched my leg trying to get back on the bike. It was so painful I had to pull off in qualifying and then do the last 3 jumps later on. In the end I qualified quite low down in 7th place, and to be honest I was lucky to get that. I was really feeling the pinch.

The competition format was inspired from the Red Bull X-Fighters style of competition with a head to head format but also using an IFMXF system of the hot-seat and making a more choreographed show to keep the crowd really into it. It even worked better with the Australia vs. New Zealand aspect which always riles up both nations.

Kain Saul, Nick Franklin, Liston Borrie and Josh Thompson already did enough to qualify straight into the nights main event, so the rest of us had to fight it out to try make the cut and take them on.

Because I qualified in at 7th with injury I had to work my way up the system to even make the main event and I knew it was going to be hard because the new breed of Kiwi riders were absolutely killing it. The only thing they didn't have was a backflip, because they have their up-right tricks dialled and with good style too. I was up against Liston Borrie in the first round, and he was the highest placed non-flipper for the night so I knew it was going to be really tough. He could trick it in the wind with big tricks and had the Kiwi crowd behind him. Somehow I managed to forget about the pain and did the best riding I had done all day and it was just at the right time. Liston put together a killer run, but I managed to sneak through to the next round and into the Semi finals where I faced Nick Franklin.

28122009221copy Frankie had some problems through the day with his bike playing up so he had no practice but he certainly didn't show it with his flip tricks and sweet up right tricks. I was really pumped by this stage and I pulled an even better run than the previous run and put the pressure on Frankie. Nick did throw a dead sailor and also stuffed a couple of tricks and I just missed out on moving through as he did have a good bag of flip tricks complimented with a really good Nac-Flip.

So I was at least sitting in the 3rd vs. 4th round which put me against Josh Thompson who I think was the smoothest of the Kiwi riders. I knew this was going to be a tough job as I was really gunning for the podium spot by now. After getting a massage on my lower back to relieve some of the sciatic pain I headed out and put together the best run I had all night and I went a little quicker too which made the difference. Josh rode so good with huge rock solids and double nac indy's, but because I managed to get an extra jump in meant I had the extra points to seal the deal and claim 3rd place.

It was then time for the Final with Sauly taking on Nick Franklin. Sauly had been riding the best all day and looked at home on the course with huge flip tricks like cordova and whip flips. Because Nick qualified in at 2nd place meant he was out first in the final and with the best run Frankie had put together all day it was the pressure he needed to put on Sauly to try take the win.

Kain came out all guns blazing and didn't miss a beat. This was Sauly's first proper FMX competition (not including the 4-jump SuperX series last year) but an actual timed run, and he rode with what looked like no pressure at all. All of Sauly's tricks were perfect and you couldn't fault him on anything. He threw his biggest KOD flips he'd ever done, Super Indy flip, Cordova and whip flips on top of big holy grab's and rock solid indy's.

28122009223copy But it wouldn't be enough to beat Nick Franklin. Nick managed to sneak in one more jump on Sauly in the 120 second final to take out first place. It was the classic ANZAC competition and this time the Kiwi's took the spoils, but I'm sure it will be repaid next time.

In the end, Mary Perkins and her crew put on the best choreographed competition the region has seen in a long time, if ever. Mary's formula definitely worked with the side of the stadium packed out where they set up the competition. The crowd were loud and vocal and the riders gave them the best show they could.

We now wait eagerly for dates of next years event. You'll definitely see me there and I bet every other rider who was there.

The results: