On my end, I worked at Unreel Productions, the Vision video company, from December 1987 through 1988, and I was basically a a production assistant, what they call a PA in the TV industry. My main job was dubbing copies of tapes of one thing or another for people throughout the Vision empire of companies. But I did a little bit of everything, like running errands, picking up supplies, manning the phones at lunch, training the receptionists, and everything nobody else wanted to do. I knew I had job security,though, because I was the only one who knew how to change the toilet paper roll in the front bathroom at the office. So they couldn't fire me.
Sometime in late '88 or early '89, Pat Wallace, the staff cameraman, moved on to another job, and I became the new cameraman. It sounds really cool, but mostly I did my same job, and then went out on video shoots once in a while. The cool part was getting sent to every 2-Hip King of Vert and Meet the Street contest in 1989. Since I was the token BMX guy in a crew of older surfer guys, it was great to travel to those on the Vision dime. In those days, we used pro quality Sony Betacam video cameras that weighed 35 pounds and cost $50,000 each. That's not a typo. Broadcast quality cameras were crazy expensive in the late 80's.
The Kitchener contest was the first I traveled to as cameraman, and I had to rent an Ikegami Betacam, and then make sure I actually knew how to work it, once in Canada. I traveled with a very attractive woman from the Vision promotions office, whose name I can't remember now. That's probably good, because I was really a dork then, and probably made an ass out of myself around her. Like when we got to the hotel and I realized I hadn't booked a room. I thought she handled that stuff as the promotions person. I asked if I could crash on the floor of her room. She was a seasoned traveler, a real road warrior who had worked for the NFL, and said something like, "No fucking way, you're sleeping the rental car if they're out of rooms." I managed to luck out, there were empty rooms so I got one. I guess March isn't a big tourist month in Ontario.
In typical BMX fashion, I ran into Rob Dodds while shooting the practice session that evening. That's probably when the photo above was taken.
I met Rob and a whole host of other Canadianfreestylers when I went with my Idaho teammate Jay Bickel and family to a contest at Whistler, British Columbia 3 or 4 years earlier. Since we were all there for a week in Whistler, we rode all day, sessioning with Eddie Fiola and Chris Lashua, who were taking a break from the GT Brittania Tour. We all got to know each other pretty well during that week. When I talked to Rob at this contest, he was looking for a room to crash in, having traveled from Western Canada. I had a big couch in my room, and offered it up.
As luck would have it, the room beside us was the weekend home to Dennis McCoy, Steve Swope and Mat Hoffman. Like every contest, we were wandering around talking and hanging out that night in different rooms. The talk of the weekend was some Canadian guy named nicknamed the Terminator, and rumor was that he had learned some kind of backflip trick. This was before the flip fakie and flair were even considered possible, even by Mat. Some people said he was going to do an abubaca to backflip, some said a backflip fakie. Sure, those don't seem so crazy today, but this was 1989, before all those young backflip triple whipper guys of today's scene were even born. When it came to the am finals, the Terminator tried some kind of abubaca thing, leaned back, and just took a hard slam. There was a big let down to the 300 or so of us in that gymnasium. It was like the whole weekend of hype fizzled out like a dud bottle rocket.
Several of the big name riders were trying to huck a 900. Mike Dominguez had come agonizingly close at the final Enchanted Ramp contest in 1988, and he said held landed a couple on his own ramp, but never got video of them. So the world hadn't seen one yet. Several guys tried, and young Mat Hoffman hucked an attempt and, like Mike D., just barely missed landing it.
So he tried another one. I was on the opposite deck, banging elbows with John Ker and the other photographers. I had the only professional quality betacam in the room. Mat's Skyway teammate, Eddie Roman, had his S-VHS camera on the ground. Someone else had a camera on the deck where Mat was spinning. This was the olden days kids, cell phones didn't exist (to poor people), and there were actually more bike riders there than cameras. On the second attempt, Mat carved across the ramp and landed the first BMX 900 air in a contest. And the first 900 air in ANY action sport in a contest. We instantly forgot about the Terminator guy.
When we got back to the room, Rob and I cleaned up and were headed to the hotel diner to go eat, and ran into Dennis and Swope coming out their door. They were also heading to eat. We asked where Mat was. Steve Swope said, "Look through the peephole." Some how, the peephole in their hotel door got knocked out, so we could look in. Mat was sitting there two feet from the TV, with a camera plugged into it. He was watching the 900 over, and over, and over. I guess he was analyzing it or figuring out just how he got it to work that time. Dennis rolled is eyes, "He's been doing that for an hour, just watching it over and over." So we all went in, watched it a few times, and then dragged Mat from the TV and we all went to eat.
On the walk there, Rob was talking to Mat about this crazy trick he'd been trying, a no-handed 540. That was another impossible sounding trick at that time. Rob said they would come around, but the bars would always drift away and he couldn't land one. So Mat and Rob got into a serious vert rider discussion on how it might be possible to land a no-handed 540.
Guess what trick Mat debuted at the next contest at Woodward?
Thanks Ken for sharing the photo, and Rob for sharing it with me and adding to the legend that you can't show my face in a BMX photo. Heh, heh, heh.
Here's the clip of Mat's 900 from Eddie Roman and another camera guy. In the first shot, I'm on the opposite deck, just to the right of Mat during his warm-up air. I was wearing the never fashionable Vision Street Wear black and white "cow pants that day. Eddie Roman is the guy you hear doing commentary while shooting from the ground.
Below is what's available from my footage shot that day. There was a lot of great riding going down. This is from 2-Hip: Ride Like a Man, a video Eddie Roman edited. That's Eddie and friends talking in the back ground. Mat's 900 is at 14:43, at the end of this clip. Epic weekend.
Check out my art in person, or create a project of your own while here in Winston-Salem at Designs, Vines, and Wines.
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