Friday:

Friday morning me and my girl loaded up the ute with everything we’d need for the weekend. It’s surprising how little you need to bring to an FMX comp, just my bike, gear bag, full tank of fuel and not a single tool and.

The course was located 15 minutes out of Gympie at Zac Mackenzie’s place about 3 hours from the Gold Coast where I’m from.

I can’t lie driving out there I was excited, I had seen photos of the course from last year and I had heard this year was going to be even better. To this day and having rode FMX full time for the past 8 years I had never ridden an FMX comp that didn’t consist of one boring 75ft ramp, every comp I had ridden at was simply organised to sell tickets and make money with the riders losing out.

As we pulled into the property and caught a glimpse of the course, my heart started racing.  I immediately jumped out the car said hi to a few of the boys then headed down to check out this course. After walking the course with Tyrone Gilks I was shitting myself. Tyrone had test jumped all the jumps before I had got there he was giving us a few tips on lines to take and speeds to hit jumps in.

The course was super technical with a huge dirt section, ramp and superkicker step ups, dirt hits, and plenty of other ramps, there were jumps I had never come across in my career and I was intimidated for sure.

As I geared up and had a chat to all the boys about the course, they all seemed so confident and not worried much at all, this helped for sure.

I made sure I was the first out in our practice group as I hate sitting back and watching everyone jump stuff first, as jumps always look way bigger watching than they feel to jump. I knew I had the 75ft ramps dialled so I headed straight to the dirt section and rode that a few times till I had it smooth. Next practice I worked on the step up section and started linking the whole course together… now I was starting to relax and have some fun!

Saturday:

Saturday was an early start which reminded me heaps of back when I used to race motocross. I met all the boys out at the compound at 8:30 for a quick riders briefing then we were straight into it.

The event started with two qualifying 90 second runs with your best run score moving the top eight into the next round of competition. The big stand out was Tyrone Gilks who destroyed the course jumping and tricking everything insight, Tyrone qualified first and looked very strong to take the overall. In my qualifying run I gave it all I had to hopefully make sure I secured a spot in the next round. My runs went as planned and I qualified third behind Steve Sommerfeld.

After qualifying was over and the results were announced, we found out who made the cut for the semi finals. Coming into this event everyone had told us how chilled and relaxed it was but after qualifying that all started to change. Riders had talks with the judges and other riders to see where they could improve and the event was starting to heat up, it was a good feeling to start to feel the competition between all the boys, something that I had never really felt at an FMX event before.

Next up was the semi final and only four would continue to the final and I didn’t know if I could improve on my previous qualifying runs. Talking with a few the boys and they all thought I could have planned my run a little better and squeezed a few more jumps out of my 90 seconds. This was going to be tough as I only have 12 decent tricks and had done all them already.

In the semis there were four boys who really stood out for me, Steve Sommerfeld who used the entire course and landed his first flips ever in competition, Joel Brown with his unique combos and big flips tricks, Tyrone who had been on point all day and Joe Sheppard’s style and confidence on the course.

My semi final run was the best 90 second ride on a bike I have ever had, I swear I didn’t take a breath the entire 90 seconds till my run was over, jump after jump I was getting more and more nervous as I didn’t want to miss a single trick.

Its such a different feeling from racing, no one else matters out there on the course, all you want to do is ride the absolute best you know you can. This is going to sound so cliché and gay but I didn’t care where I finished, as long as I didn’t make any mistakes and rode my best.

As the semi finals wrapped up it was time to see who would battle it out in the finals. Somerfield, Sheppard, Browny and myself had all made it. I was pumped but once again had no idea how I was going to improve on my last run… I had nothing left and even less energy to do it.

Since Pat Bowden had gone down earlier in the day and couldn’t be moved till an ambulance arrived, the comp was running late and the sun was going down fast. As the sun dropped it had become impossible to see, as 80% of the jumps faced directly into the sun. Since this was a massive issue the final round of the comp was called and the results from the semis were used as a final score.

As it turned out from the semi final scores, I had scored the win with Joel Brown in second and Joe Sheppard taking third. I honestly couldn’t believe it, as I was sure Joel had the win for sure with his huge superflips and tech combos.

At the end of the day I can’t thank Joel Rayner and the guys behind the AUFMXC enough for giving us the chance to ride this incredible event. It’s amazing how successful an event can be when profits aren’t all a promoter aims for. From start to finish this event was run by the riders for the riders which had been the goal of the series since it started way back in 2007… I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to ride my first round.

The first stop of this Australian tour was in Brisbane and it would be the very first time i’d have my own section in the show. In my section I flip a dead stock postie bike dressed as an Australian Post Postman. It an awesome part of the show and so much fun riding both FMX and doing the postie thing.

Adrenalin junkie Matty McFerran ponders life after motocross