Billabong Freeway Tour at Mt Hotham

August 21, 2006

Billabong Freeway Tour at Mt Hotham

Well it seems that the Australian resorts have finally learned how important it is to construct decent rail features. Q and his park crew one-upped the Buller guys when they built the park for the Mt Hotham stop of the Billabong Freeway Tour.

There was a C-Box or 44 gallon drum jib into an option of either a kink, down bar, flat down box or a up-gap-down box setup then into a 10 foot quater pipe with a wooden coping extension on top. Yep, pretty epic; and when you couple that with the banked slalom on the following day it was well worth the $45 entry fee.

Results… If you’d like a bit of a laugh you can read the official press release of the event here. I especially liked the bit about Busetti’s ‘tail slide to 270 onto the front board’. Anyway… Dan Busetti announced his comeback with his frantic approach to every feature for a 1st place, $500 and a digital camera from Panasonic. I’m stoked for the guy to be riding so good. Mikey Williams got 2nd and also the best trick award (a massive gap-to 270 frontboard on the up-gap-down box setup) and won himself a digital camera. Robbie Walker got 3rd and as far as I know, he didn’t win anything. Canadian rookie Alexandra Rey won the women’s division. Young Gun Jye Kearney won the junior section (he was damn impressive).

Like the Buller Pepsi contest, the setup was on point but there was a certain vibe missing from the contest. The contest itself was your typical free-for-all jam format. Having actually competed in the event, I really wish they’d limit the ‘jam’ to no more than 40 minutes because after about an hour you’re pretty much over it. I think it would be better to force everyone to throw down quickly to keep the tempo up. This was mainly due to the lack of music on the course, the loose time limit and no offense intended, the commentary of the entire event. As much as I like hearing the half drunken jokes of Hotham locals, I’d much prefer to actually hear the names of the tricks that my fellow competitors are trying.

I seriously don’t understand why Billabong puts on this ‘Freeway Tour’. Besides the half arsed product toss (which I’m pretty sure I saw a Billabong team rider win at least once) the only people that benefit from the event are the snowboarders that get to ride the setup. I would love to see a contest that the general public could actually feel a part of. So my apologies for taking so long to get the 2006 POP Magazine public orgy event off the ground…

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Another quick little video for your eyeballs.