a comprehensive guide

Cover
Story
1080’s
a comp
rehens
ive gui
de
Words: Luke Thomas
Photo: Jeff Weatherall
Rider: Brad Smeele
M
ost riders won’t ever get to the stage of
even considering throwing a 1080, let alone
coming close to landing one. Anyone who
has seen a video of someone throwing a 10 will
know why. In short, its an insane amount of spinning.
However there has been a bit of a spike in the
number of 10’s landed in the past few years (have
a look at the time-line on the next page) which
is needless to say great for the sport. But it got
me wondering why there has been such a spike.
Is it that riders are getting better, wake’s getting bigger, better equipment - or is it the mindset? Surely a 1080 seems alot more feasible now
it has been landed by 10+ riders than it did back
when Parks, Danny and Brad were throwing them.
The 1080 history started back with Parks Bonifay
in 1999 on a photo shoot with Bill Doster. There
is a great sequence shot of this on Bill’s website.
After Park’s 10, there was a 7 year dry spell, in which
rider’s started wondering if the 1080 was possible,
or if Parks was just a freak of nature (which lets
face it, he is!) That was until Danny Harf busted
a sweet 10 ... to become the first 1080 caught on
film and the first to end the seven year dry spell.