ASRA - Australian Skateboard Racing Association

The most important "events" in the history of downhill and slalom in Australia

Well, what do you think - what are the most important events in the history of downhill and slalom? This question has been asked by a friend who's making a skate documentary, and I said I'd help, and now I'm asking everybody to help.

Here's some guidelines:

* an event can be anything - a race, a person, a website, a shop, a bust, an organisation, a death, a discovery of a spot, a visit by an overseas pro etc.

* the event can be positive or negative

* I need a date for when it happened.

I'm particularly interested in things that happened prior to 2005, cos I wasn't around then.

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Playstation X-Games, Australia, late'90's early 2000. Promotion of Streetluge and Standup.

IGSA World Cup coming to Australia

2009 World Championships, Mt Panorama....Jackson Shapiera going into Forrest Elbow, no slide or footbrake, just a couple of small carving, airbrake turns and smashing through the corner and making it. Jacko was the first to do it, now everyone tries it. Regardless of discipline, that peice of footage of Jacko set a standard, and raised the bar for standup racers at Mt Panorama since then, Pro's and first timers.

Steve Daddow's exposure of Australia during his travels, at his own expence.

X Games was the first major DH event to my knowledge. Daddow won it from memory.

The original Early Skateboard shop selling longboards circa 2000.

Early crew organising Bangalow street race. Pioneering larger scale slalom events.

the old skool team outlaw at berowra back a couple years ago. rob dog was a ghost but was racing before us all. some dude broke himself off bigtime and they moved it to hornsby. i wasnt there but its a good story

For me the old skool team website and videos were pioneering. In Australia, on the internet, they were almost the lone example of downhill in Australia.

I remember talking to Daddow at one of the conehead slalom comps, it was the Blacktown one. There was a bit of downhill stuff happening and my question to him was what will it be? Slalom or Downhill. I thought he would say downhill but we kept coming back to what type of events can easily be insured and sanctioned. We both agreed it had to be slalom. I sort of thought that it was slalom until Newtons 2008. In my world, that was a pivotal moment for the scene in Australia. I just remember standing on top of Mt Panorama and thinking of all the possibilities. It was almost a sneak peak into what our future could be. I know it blew the minds of a lot of overseas competitors and IGSA, it was almost downhill's coming of age.

Jackson and Lesso touring Europe that year in 2008. Jackson doing a skatehorde video within days of the event finishing. At the time it was ground breaking but seems so quaint now in the age of broadband, wifi, facebook and gopros. Even the type of video uploading we were doing - using vimeo and blip.tv which was different. Ignoring youtube. Sort of standard these days.

2009 World Championships - the event that nearly ruined us all. The amount of work that Haggy did was amazing. Robbo and myself seem to work every afternoon for months. I think Robbo pulled a lot of all day all nights getting the video streaming to work. To have live racing over 1.5km of track on a mountain and broadcast to the top of the mountain to all the racers to watch. All home brew! When Robbo and I got it working (really just Robbo), we were sitting at the top of Castrol Tower, we had 4 monitors and it was the most wondrous sight. We could switch between the cameras, follow racers down the hill. That weekend we had the best job in the world. Making the type of TV sport we wanted to watch! Finals day I was on the start line camera, Robbo got to have all the fun in the switching room. As soon as a race would start, I'd drop the camera and race to the big screen and we'd all crowd around and watch the racing unfold. Even though Newtons 2012 was a HUGE step up in technology and quality and live streaming around the world, they still did not achieve what we did in 2009, a live camera at the finish line!

2009 was also the rebirth of luge. Marcus made a comment about how he thought luge was in decline and done until Newtons 2009. It was like all the lugers in Australia came out and breathed life into the old girl. We are still feeling the positive effects of that now. Where luge is and where it is going has grown off that base/platform set by Ado and the lugers in 2009. 

There are stories about Steve Daddow and his trip to Europe in early 2000's. They might be apocryphal, and I use that term as we want it to be the legend. Daddow skating in Europe and scaring/blowing away the European riders with his sliding/freeriding into corners and not doing a footbrake.

I have video interviews somewhere from the 2009 tour Jackson did in Europe. I think it was the start or birth of modern freeriding. The Orangatang dream team. Jacko, Kelly, Pilloni, Switzer ... Scoot on abec. 

http://www.hopkin.com.au/blog/2009/07/21/peyragudes-2luxe-cup-2009-...

Jackson did these interviews at Peyragudes and they all talk about the slide/freeride break away group. There is a distinct group of riders who will slide into corners to slow down and not footbrake. At the time, that 2009 tour amazed everyone with their freeriding skills. You could argue that the pre-ground freeride wheel resulted from those tours. It also marked the change of the type of touring. Instead of the tour being about IGSA, it became more about what hills they freerided between events and during the event.

Every week seems to have momentous events. Off the top of my head, they are the stand out ones. I'll try and post up more later.

Is it a worldwide documentary? Or just Australian?

John Fox at slalom events mid 2000's in Sydney also stand out. We would all be doing slalom and John would pull out his luge or downhill "speedboard" and tuck down the course. After a few years, everyone would turn up with longboards at Allawah. Bugs would be practicing his slides. Pete Smith exploring the bush and trees on a luge after missing the corner. And sometimes the whole event would turn into china bombs at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8kpYrkH2wE

Jackson's no hand no brake run of Mt Panorama is still one of my all time favourite sporting moments. I think the commentary Striker was gold. Finally someone is skating this mountain the way it should be attacked.

Meeting Jackson at Cam's Jam in 2007 in retrospect was a game changer.

http://www.skateboardracing.org.au/photo/2144162:Photo:257?context=...

Hey Bugs.

I cant believe this link is still active. Its a full race report from the 1st Outlaw Downhill Race held in Oz.

http://www.longboarddirectory.com/scene_reports_oldskool_complete.html

kanufi on Jackos log in.

Most of the early stuff is listed above.

Definitely the Old School Team website (it's where I met Fitz and the others), the Bangalow Slalom Australian Championships, those early DH races in Hornsby and surrounds (come on Kanufi fill in the details).

Coming to Bathurst in 2008 to work the first Newton's Playground (before it became a festival) was amazing, watching Steve Daddow crash a luge (MY luge) through Forrest Elbow was incredible (especially as I hadn't ridden it at that stage). the whole atmosphere of that race so raw and new. The 2009 race where I actually got to ride was probably the first really professional downhill event since the X Games almost 10 years before, so much had been learned by the ASRA crew since the first one and the quality of the riding was increasing exponentially.

As mentioned above Jacko's no brake run down Mt Panorama was definitely something I will never forget, it was just mind blowing and set the bar for everyone else.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but there are a few already for your mate to work with.

Haggys Allawah Slalom race (pre Bugs) was of note. Pleasure Tools donated a huge bag of bearings and stickers for prizes. NCDSA was the forum of choice.
Oldskool Team made a show.
Joe "The Outlaw Josie Wales" Eagle, Daniel Port and myself were there as the original South Side Crew.
International visiter Jean Luca?
Park and bowl riders such as Scoot Tansley reignited their youth riding the wave of slaloms second coming. Others would follow after that events success and videos shown on OST website.

Before OST there was a single aussie who kicked ass overseas. Dave Kelly was the man back then.

Dave Kelly kicks alot of asses here in Oz too. I heard a rumour poor Benny fell victim at the Ox hotel in Bathurst the other year. Ha!

That's right. He used to race against Biker Sherlock and Chris Chaput.

The freeway bust was a pretty big deal in adelaide.
Steve daddows crash when his helmet came off at newtons.

 The AURA   from 1980 to early 90s Who shall all remain nameless CA BP GC CS DN SH MG and the rest.

If it was a pic , i just love Cats shot at Keira looking back up the hill as thousands of people walk back down ,

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