Bondi Bowlarama 2009

Read the full VANS team blog here.

Due to a delayed flight I arrived late Wednesday night & missed the Bacon skateboards demo at Five Dock. If you've not seen the Bacon crew yet go grab the free video here, well worth the download.

Benji Galloway is super consistent & seems like a top dude, Tim Johnson is just one of the gnarliest skaters I've seen, must admit I wasn't aware of him until now but his nollie hard flip into the Bondi deep end later in the week was one of the sickest things I've witnessed. Anyway on to Bowlarama...

Wandered down to the bowl Thursday morning to meet my good mate Boomerdog, Australian coordinator for Concrete Wave magazine & general good guy. We rocked up at the bowl to find Bucky Lasek, Cab, Omar & a few others already putting runs together in preparation for Saturdays comp. Pretty incredible to be standing on the platform with these guys & watching skating at that level so close up. Had a quick chat with Cab about hot rod's & his artwork, appears he'd been selling his hot rod paintings the night before at the Love & Guts art show...damm flight delays meant I missed that too!

There was probably about 20 people around the bowl at this stage, a far cry from the 2000 odd that rocked up on the actual comp day. Grabbed a heap of photos & just sat around all day watching some awesome shredding as more & more faces arrived.

Bumped into a couple of WA dudes too, Harry Clarke was in town for the Slam skater of the year party (title was taken by Andrew Brophy) & Fletch from Margaret River was also in town with his family. Fletch got stuck in to the bowl & sessioned with Cab, Omar etc....I didn't have the balls! Bondi is just over 13 feet deep so a fair bit bigger than anything we've got in Perth, given a chance to suss out some lines in the quiet I would have thrown myself in just for the hell of it but hey maybe next year. I swerved the Slam party & went to the launch of Aussie veteran Adrian 'Errol' Jones new OMA deck. Adrian turned out to be a very cool dude & a rad skater so was good to see him pick up another sponsor & the guys at Captain Billys crabshack threw on a barbie for some local crew. Cheers Jamie.

Got a call Friday from a photographer friend to say she was photographing some skaters at a cafe in Bondi so would we like to come along for breakfast, would have been rude not to so we wandered over & found Omar, Chris Senn, Benji and a few others recovering from the night before's partying. There's stuff happening around Bondi all week in conjunction with the comp so plenty of chances to get on the beers.

Anyway I was just relaxing with a coffee & pointing out skaters to my photographer friend (poor girl didn't really know who she was supposed to be snapping!) when a very tall, familiar face walked towards me....Bob Burnquist.

Had no idea he was coming in but couldn't resist the opportunity to act like a star struck 15 year old & grab a quick picture with him. He's a legend after all. Had a quick chat & he'd apparently only just flown in & was hitting the bowl later that day for some practice runs. My wife also got stopped by Benji Galloway who asked about her bowlscum shirt, seems it caught his eye as he used to ride for scum skates back in the day. We had a chat & I told him about the pipe crew over here which he thought was pretty rad.

After breakfast I headed back to the bowl where the session was cranking, newcomer Sky Siljeg was going off & will definitely be a big name in the next few years, only a broken hand later that day stopped him placing higher in the comp in my opinion. Good to see a fair amount of kids in the bowl too, some unbelievable stuff going down including Miller flips from a kid that couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. Also one girl (Issy) who was shredding the bowl with no pads. Sure enough Bob turned up later and I was amazed by the speed & power he's got. You just don't get a feel for it from videos but when he's blasting all kinds of mad stuff right in front of you you realise exactly why he's so revered, same for many of the others. Lot's of old school faces started to appear then including Sergie Ventura, Lester Kasai, Nicky Guerreo & Pat Ngoho amongst others.

Saturday was comp day & by now the security & barriers were in place so no more bowlside photography for me. I was lucky enough to have a media pass which gave me access to the VIP stand at the shallow end of the bowl. Had a pretty good view from there looking down into the bowl but no good for photos so I just kicked back and watched the action as the masters heats got underway.

Cab was on great form with his distinctive lipslides & inverts but the Aussies including Mick Mulhall, Adrian Jones, Johhny Gray & Jamie Greentree were all skating hard & proving that they'd got the local lines wired. Masters heats was followed by the Pro heats but with a few rain showers coming in it was time to dry the bowl out (good work Bill & the clean up crew) so I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with Kevin Staab who was sitting in front of me, very cool and quite happy to talk about Birdhouse's Aussie tour.

Stupidly I decided to grab some lunch while the rain came down only to find I couldn't get back into the stand afterwards as it was full! I wasn't the only one with that problem which resulted in some security/skater hassle later in the day, can't say much more as charges are pending but let's just say the Police in Sydney are pretty heavy handed! Trying to see anything around the bowl from the sides is almost impossible so if you go, don't move or you'll never get back in (lesson learnt!) Pro division was won by Bucky with Omar taking second and Sydney local Nathan 'Jimmy' Beck grabbing third. Awesome to see the Aussies taking prizes against a line up of the top US pros. Rune Glifberg was injured & I think Bob might have been too which may have changed things had they both been on top form but who cares, it's the chance to see these guys go off that really counts.

I did manage to grab a reasonable viewpoint later on for the masters finals which Cab took out closely followed by Nicky Guerrero & Mick Mulhall. Not much more I can say about the skating, I'll let the photos speak for themselves...other than to say the whole trip was a blast & I'd highly recommend it if you get the chance. My final night on Saturday was spent at the prize giving at the Beach Road hotel which was heaps of fun. Just time for a quick skate at Five Dock (the best park I've ever skated!) & Galston pool (ridiculously tight & whippy but still fun) before heading back to Perth.