Night Riders: Morisset Night Sessions
Last year’s night jam at Morisset was so much fun we decided to do it again, only this time it’d be bigger, better and we’d bring in a few of the big guns for a session!
Cast your mind back to issue #48 (the one with Robbie Maddison on the cover) and you should remember a story we did on a evening/night FMX session we held at the Morisset (NSW Central Coast) compound. We brought in a set of daymaker lights, a cherry picker and invited a few riders to come and ride. We had a hell of a good time, and when Luke Cole hit us up to see if we’d be keen to hold it again in 2009, it didn’t take much more than two seconds to put on our best Napoleon Dynamite impersonation and say “heck yes!”.
Word had got out about how good last year’s jam was, and as soon as the riders heard we were holding it again the phones started ringing thick and fast. Before we knew it we had Chucki Norris, Jacko Strong, Luke Cole, Pete Anderson and Jimmy Bartle all locked in for the event, and as well as several other potentials. We were good to go!
OVEN-BAKED
The days leading up to the night shoot were some of the hottest we’d experienced so far this year, with the mercury soaring to 42 degrees in Newcastle and 40 in Sydney. Needless to say, no riding had gone down at the Morisset compound for a good couple of weeks because of the ridiculous heat that could’ve seen you fry an egg on the bonnet of your car.
“Dude, it was so hot here I just sat inside the house with the aircon on and watched the cricket,” Luke Cole explained. “It’s times like this I wish we had lights permanently installed here at the Morisset compound so we don’t have to try and ride in the heat. I dunno if the neighbours would be into it, but it’s not a bad idea!”
Meanwhile, Chucki and Jacko had found their own way to avoid the heat in the lead-up to the night jam: head to the nearest lake and shred some boat wakes.
“Wake-boarding is my new favourite thing to do!” revealed Chuck. “It’s such a cool feeling and is a good way to escape the heat, but still get out there and have fun. But man it can hurt when you crash!”
Fortunately the day of the shoot would only reach a balmy 31 degrees, with a late south-easterly change forecast to sweep through in the arvo. As long as it didn’t bring any rain and the wind didn’t pick up too much, we’d be sweet. Fingers crossed.
LET’S GET ROLLING!
Now the good thing about a night shoot is there’s no pressure to get out there straight after wolfing down breakfast and trying to get in the groove of hitting ramps with the remnants of sleep still lingering in the back of your head.
Still, the boys definitely took their time making sure everything was in order, new graphics kits were stuck on their bikes, super-flip levers were nice and tight, and we were forced to give the generator running the watering system a complete service. Things never run on time in freestyle!
“Alright, enough of this pissing around,” Chucki said, grabbing his helmet. “Let’s get out there and start riding.”
Within two jumps the father of two was already throwing out big Turndown whips and his trademark Jackhammers, stoking the fires of those still on the ground to get their crap sorted and head on to the course.
Being at the top of a cherry-picker and having bikes and riders fly past within a metre or so of your camera is pretty darn unnerving. Every move you make is exaggerated through the 50-foot arm and causes the bucket to sway disconcertingly. Still, the angle creates a different perspective of shooting freestyle and will give you a whole new respect for the heights that these blokes perform their aerial acrobatics at.
The Metal Mulisha’s newest Aussie soldier, Jacko Strong, was the next rider to head out and proceeded to tear the compound apart with his huge whips and relaxed, fluid riding style that has seen him become one of the country’s brightest young FMX stars.
The 17-year-old has a strong enough attitude not to be pushed into things he doesn’t want to do, sports a bright, infectious personality similar to Bilko, but still carries himself with a uber-professional attitude whenever he’s being interviewed or finds himself in the public eye.
Before long Anderson, Bartle and Cole joined Jacko and Norris on the course and the five riders quickly stepped up their game for the still and video cameras. Essentially this was supposed to be a warm-up for the next two sessions, but it seemed the lads had forgotten about the huge amount of riding that was still to come and threw out their best tricks as they sailed past my precarious position in the cherry-picker.
The session climaxed when Bartle rotated through a 75ft Backflip and Coley kicked out a huge Whip less than a bike-length behind his Gold Coast-based JC Epidemic team-mate.
“Bloody hell, I thought they were going to hit in the air!” FRMX photographer Rob MacFarlane gasped. “From my angle I could’ve sworn they were going to make contact!”
“Yeah, it was pretty close,” Bartle admitted afterward. “When I was looking back towards Luke all I could see was his front wheel coming at me!”
TRAINING DAY
After a breather in the shade next to the foam-pit (and more than a little friendly banter) the boys started itching to get back out and hit up the back-to-back 75ft ramps. It only took the local lads Cole and Chucki a couple of jumps before they started throwing tricks off both ramps, but Pete Anderson took a bit longer to sum up the courage to hit the second jump.
“You don’t have much time to think about it,” he explained. “As soon as you land you’ve got to prepare to take off again, and that gets pretty tricky if you get your line wrong off the first jump.”
However, he soon got in the zone, throwing a big Rocky off the first, then backing it up with a super-tidy Double Grab Hart.
“Yeah, that was sick!” laughed Cole as he rode past. “How good did that look!”
Even though he’s owns one of the pimpest compounds in the country, Jacko also had never hit two 75ft ramps that flowed from one into the other. But it hardly stopped him: within five runs through the section the fearless grom was throwing Backflip into Cordova Flip.
“Jacko has so much confidence it’s crazy,” Jimmy said, shaking his head. “I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got youth on your side and haven’t had too many injuries.”
By then the sun was well and truly heading towards the western horizon, but just before we hit the photographers’ “magic hour” the wind suddenly swung around to the south-east, the temperature dropped a good five degrees, and thick, grey clouds rolled in from the NSW Central Coast.
I groaned. The plan to shoot the boys riding through the sunset just got shot to pieces. The frustrating thing was the 2008 sunset session was also a non-event as we’d had some huge dramas trying to get the lights set up.
Still, the boys were determined to make the most of the situation and sorted themselves into a train and put in one serious session on the 75ft Double-Double. The riders sat hard on each others’ tail as they hit the first ramp, threw down their best tricks, disappeared from view from my vantage point, then quickly reappeared as they launched the second hit. The quality of the tricks the boys were throwing down was awesome and I couldn’t help but shake my head at how far they’d come in a little over a year. At our first night jam only one rider – Jimmy Bartle – was flipping. This year four of the five riders on the course were more than comfortable rotating through the 75.
After 15 minutes of epic trains the light began to fade rapidly, and the boys peeled off to grab a much-needed drink of water and to help set the lights up for the final evening session.
DARKNESS REIGNS
Now it doesn’t seem to matter how well you lay your plans, something is always bound to screw up. I had hoped the lack of a sunset and the stubborn water-pump earlier in the day would be the only setbacks we’d experience, but there was one more to come – one of the daymaker floodlights had a flat battery and refused to turn over.
On top of that, several light spits of rain glowed in the lights of the one operating daymaker as they headed towards earth.
“Anyone got jumper leads?” shouted Coley.
One of the bystanders happened to have a set and wheeled his car around in front of the light tower and hooked up the batteries. Cole again turned the ignition. The starter motor whined several times, then caught with a growl and burst into life amid cheers from the riders. We were good to go!
Now we just needed the rain to hold off for the next 45 minutes…
The daymakers were wheeled into position and lit up the 75ft set-up and the boys’ flight path perfectly, and, with the help of the headlights from several of the cars, the berm and run-up was also illuminated.
“Using car headlights for FMX reminds me of a comp we did a few years back on the Gold Coast,” Cole chuckled.
“Alright, let’s get this done before it starts raining,” stated Chucki. “I’m hanging out for a beer!”
As the guys geared up and kicked their bikes over, I headed up in the cherry-picker again. The wind had picked up significantly and caused the whole contraption to sway more the higher I got. Fortunately it was coming from immediately behind the run-up, so it wouldn’t affect the riders too much.
A shirtless Jacko was the first rider out and wasted no time hucking himself upside-down and pushing his torso out in a super-clean Cordova Flip. The kid was obviously keen to make his mark on the session!
Anderson quickly joined Strong and flew past my aerial position with his YZ250 corked out in a stylin’ whip, then backed it up with a cracker of a Rock Solid and a big Lookback Ruler. Things were definitely starting to heat up.
The boys threw out their best tricks for the cameras and seemed to up the ante with every jump. Chuck’s Nine O’Clock Nacs were some of the biggest I’ve seen, Bartle was holding his Double Grab Harts for what seemed an eternity, and Cole floated so far off his bike on his Flatliner Indies it looked humanly impossible to bring them back in time for landing.
After several whip trains through the inky darkness the boys started to flag and started pulling off the compound. After all, it was closing in on 10.30pm and they’d been riding fairly solidly since 3pm.
Jacko had other ideas, though.
“I’m gonna do a Superflip,” he called up to my aerial position.
I gave him the thumbs-up and the grommet, who was fizzing harder than an aspirin in a cup of lemonade, pulled back as he hit the ramp, kicked his legs out while floating upside-down, then muscled his way back on to the rotating bike in time for landing.
“Get more extension, ya pussy!” Chucki yelled.
“Oh righto,” Jacko shouted back. “You better come pick me up off the down-ramp then!”
But Jacko didn’t back down and busted out two more Superflips for the onlookers and cameras, each one bigger than its predecessor, before finishing off the night with two impressive Cordova Flips.
“Yo, Makker, have you got enough shots?” Coley called up to me.
“Mate, I had plenty before we even started the night session!” I laughed and started lowering the crane.
As if on cue, a squally shower of rain suddenly hammered the compound. Damn – talk about timing!
It was definitely time to pack up, find a bottle-o that’d still be open and crack open a few celebratory beers. And if we were in the mood, those few might be followed by a couple more. And then a couple more after that… and then we might see some shaved heads… and then some other undisclosed antics… but that is another story altogether…
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