Australia Day Four - Mini-Madness

By the third day in Oz I was back on my regular time schedule. The beginning of the Mini Madness day started at the beach with some epic body-surfing waves (the beach is topless). The ocean is perfect, but you can only swim in designated areas due to the powerful undertow.

After a day of sun and relaxation, it was time to hit the Party at the Globe offices just south of Surfer’s Paradise where we’ve been staying. We rolled up and things were rather mellow. The food was excellent and there brews were flowing.

It was time to step things up a bit, so a Mini-Ramp Jam with some cash prizes was in order. The level of ripping was at an all-time high. Here’s some of the stuff that went down:

• David Gonzalez – 360 fs crail to board to front rock, kickflip fs nosegrind, kickflip noseblunt, kickflip fs 5-0, fakie tre noseblunt…it was insane
• Chris Haslam – I think that he may have actually skated better than his part in Cheese and Crackers…blunt 360 flip to fakie, blunt late shove-it to fakie, fs blunt late shove-it
• Greg Lutzka – ultra-smooth and extra snaps with both alley-oop fs and bs ollie kickflips and a proper-ass switch 360 flip to fakie
• Terell Robinson – acquired the name “The Black Peter Parker” for his double-footed footplant double-grab off the wall back onto the mini to fakie…for real
• Jack Fardell – local ripper threw down the lien-to-tail and front d up the extension and a fakie noseblunt nollie heel out

After viewing some serious ripping, we winded it down a bit and crowned David Gonzalez and Chris Haslam the kings of the session and handed them a few more bills. The band played a set and then Jake Phelps threw yet another Jam on the 3’ tall, 4’ wide quarter-pipe with a little bit of vert and pool coping. Dyet, Chalmers, and that Jack Fardell kid all had airs out of the damn thing…definitely a tough move. At this point I rolled upstairs to witness the mayhem.

Note: At parties hosted by skateboarders in Oz there are actually an equal amount girls hanging out. It’s not just a sausage-fest.

The lack of regulation make our parties at Skatepark of Tampa look mellow in comparison. Just as the beer ran out, I saw Security running around and things got a bit out of hand. Mag flashlights were being swung around and punches got thrown. People were yelling and pissed and the cops rolled up to smooth everything over. Time to bail.

This is Blair from Transworld and some random girl at the bar who needs some clean new undies. Possibly the most disgusting photo ever on the site. I did a close up but it's just too gnarly

I ordered a BLT (no T) for the mere price of $20 (we're stuck in touristville) and the bacon came out raw like fresh road rash. Thumbs down for some of the food here. Most of it's been decent so far, though

So we show up at the Mini-Madness party and it's the best scene ever. An amazing mini-ramp session, plenty of free beer, tons of girls all with a positive attitude about meeting new people unlike our paranoid country, and all your homies from around the world. Oh yeah, and some damn good free food from the grill

Part of the scene at the Mini-Madness party

Greg Lutzka - kickflip fakie

We got a live and in-person viewing of Cheese and Crackers when Chris Haslam got on the ramp

Chet Thomas - kickflip backside 360. I used to do this trick on tranny also, then I got old, and now I can't do this trick. It will happen to you one day

I'm continuing to blow it on the photo duty. Part way through David Gonzales' fakie 360 flip noseblunt, I let go of the shutter button and cut off the rest of the sequence. I'm still showing it to you, though

Adam Dyet - frontside tailslide frontside 360 out

Chris Haslam - backside lipslide vertical to back revert

Terell Robinson needs some work on his tranny skills, but he still managed to pull of this wall plant fakie. Extra ugly trick but highly entertaining for all of us while Terell executed it with a smile on his face the whole time

Greg Lutzka - ollie to fakie as casual as smoking a cigarette

Alex Chalmers did the dive

Ryan Clements and Omar Hassan with his creepy one eye pirate shades

Jake Phelps has this rating for all your tricks - thumbs down

In the middle is Edwina. She does marketing for Globe. The other girl had a name that reminded me of a kind of pasta, but I can't remember it as usual

Blair and I met these girls from Brazil that live in Sydney that somehow ended up at the contest. That's V on the left and J on the bottom. Instead of trying to remember their names, I had them just hold up their first initial which became their new nicknames

Let's switch gear and take a photo...

...then I took the gear switching to the next level and sported V's top for a while

Oh, and V can skate. All she can do is tic-tac, but it's a very sexy tic-tac

Matt Mumford and Rhino who seemed a little more wasted than usual tonight

Check the video footage of these girls dropping in and slamming on their asses. Things were getting extra loose on the mini-ramp with girls dropping in with skirts and barefoot

This is video footage of some girls from the crowd that made $50 for attempting to drop in on the mini-ramp. These girls are tough and took the ass pounding with a smile

Kyle Berard and Chet Childress were both fighting over the mic so they settled it with a rap battle. Berard shut him down

As the nightfall came, the crowd was getting more and more rowdy from the free beer sinking in

Some band played then the mini-ramp session started back up. Chris Haslam continued the assault with this Andrect

One of a few mini-skirt drop ins. This chick could actually skate and make it to the other side. She didn't want to get any wilder than this photo because her boyfriend was in the crowd

Jack Fardell's a local and he was destroying this mini-ramp. This is a 360 flip to fakie

Every time there's a drunk accident and people fall down, somehow the drink always manages to stay right side up. It's like some kind of cat reflexes or something

I've been slacking on the foot fetish photos. This random Aussie girl was proud of her kicks so here's a foot fetish with her

Terell Robinson so far is the only black man I've seen here. That's Tony Tave and Adam Dyet, sunburn champ, with some random girl we met on the streets

Chris Haslam - blunt 360 flip fakie

Chris Haslam - blunt frontside big spin out

I missed the make on David Gonzales' backside boneless 360 around, but this one is close enough