Skateboarding Racing at Bathurst
Last month Finn Gray-Swann from 9SK was invited to race in the first event of the World Cup Downhill Skateboarding Series raced in Bathurst, NSW, Australia.
This race course is known for the infamous Bathurst 1000 car race, and the skate circuit is known as being particularly gnarly. I was the youngest competitor there by about two years.
I went over with my dad for a week and the event itself went on for three days. There were sixty riders from fourteen different countries, so I was racing against people I’d never ridden with before, many of whom were the top riders in the world. I was pretty stoked to be there and even more excited to be racing against these top riders who I’d only ever seen before on YouTube.
The first day was a practice day, which was pretty cool because people were getting used to the track. I did about seven runs and had only one crash, but at least I didn’t hit a kangaroo!
The top rider for the day was Kyle Wester, who is the world’s fastest man on the skateboard. But even he was putting out some pretty major crashes.
I was pretty sore after the crash so on the second day I started off a wee bit slow, but soon caught up. This day was the qualifiers, and there were again some pretty major crashes, but one guy, Brandon Bass, smashed the track record and set a new time of 57.12 seconds. The top speeds at the bottom of the course were 110km/hr. I got some pretty cool footage on the GoPro topping out at 90km, racing with Finn Wilson and Jackson Lonely from Australia.
Later on in the afternoon, I sat back and watched the Teams Race event. Unfortunately, somebody got collected in the super fast Forests Elbow corner and had a trip to hospital, which resulted in the day’s race being stopped early.
At the finals day, in the Over 18's Opens bracket, my first heat was a killer against the present world number 1, Carlos Paixao. I came fourth, which I was pretty happy with.
After that race I had another couple of consolation races, before racing in the Under 18's semi final. Unfortunately I came head to head with the other two Finns who are the top riders in the Juniors. This left me in the semi finals, where I finished third.
Overall, it was great fun, but a little bit nerve racking! It was really cool to meet with the world’s top riders. The risks were a lot higher, and if you fell you knew you were going to hurt yourself a heck of a lot more, but I now know what I’ve got to aim for, and I will be back next year!
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