| Place. Toronto Canada. Date. March 25-26,1989. | |
| 900° rentré de Matt Hoffman. Double tailwhip air de Joe Johnson Pour ce qui est des chutes: Brian Blyther tente 900°, Ron Wilkerson lui se scratche en 540° into whip et enfin DMC s'éclate le dos en raccrochant du pédalier après un 540° à 2m. Mat Hoffman, The Ride of my Life, 2002: The first KOV contest of the 1989 season went down in Waterloo, Ontario, in Canada. I had a broken thumb from trying varials on my bike (never have learned 'em) but was feeling good enough to enter the comp. I had my hand cast molded in the shape of my grip so I could ride. It felt solid during my early runs, and the crowd was pretty loud. I got a wild hair and decided to try a 900 in my final run. To pull a 9 would be a pretty big deal, as it had never been done in snowboarding, skateboarding, or bike riding. It was a mythical "Wish List" trick among the top contenders in all three sports. The trick had been a biker crusade for years, Mike Dominguez had been trying them since 1987 but never landed one in public, and he wouldn't deny or confirm that he'd actually pulled it off in his backyard ramp. Brian Blyther had also twirled a few but had missed the mark, and British upstart Lee Reynolds came close and lost teeth in the process. I saved the 9 for the last trick of my final run in Ontario. I felt it in me. The first one I ever tried, I didn't get all the way around on my last rotation, and I went down in flames. It felt close, though. I rolled in for another go, pumped a few feeler airs around five feet out while I psyched myself up. Then I fired off the coping spinning furiously. This time committed all the way, leading with my shoulders and head. The thing about 900s is the horizontal rotations happen in a flash, because you have to spin so fast. 180 degrees, 360, 540, 720.. 800 ... 850 ... 900. I was airborne for two seconds, then Boom! I landed low on the tranny but rode out of it. The stadium of Canadians went ballistic. I was still rolling across the flat bottom when I got tackled by fellow pro Dino Deluca, who led a stampede of about a hundred and fifty very excited people onto the ramp. I was raised onto shoulders in a mosh pit of glory. I'd put my stamp in the history books, the contest was over, and I won. It was a cool moment. |
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