Josh Sheehan
Interviewee
27/02/1986 // Australia
Honda CRF 450
Interviewer
Martin Zöllner
06/07/17
Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas; Calle de
Alcalá, 237, 28028 Madrid, Spain
What do you make of the Plaza de
Toros de Las Ventas?
This venue is special, firstly because
it all started here - and secondly, with
the Spanish and their bull-fighting
history, it’s cool to have to come out
of the tunnels. It slows things down a
bit, it makes for a simple landing, but
it’s just special the way we come out
of the dark and all of sudden into the
arena with the crowd chanting and
yelling. The atmosphere is great.
There’s a reason they’ve been
coming here for 16 years.
Conditions are a little different
though this time…
Yeah, rain sucks. We have to put up
with nearly 40-degree temperatures
every year, then all of a sudden, this.
The water is bad. extensions - with the double as well.
Big trick list, big bag of tricks.
A little bit on the dirt is good, but too
much and we have puddles. Then the
dirt sticks to the tyres, we carry dirt
onto the run-up and then that makes
it slippery. If we slip on the take-off,
that can be catastrophic. Plus, water
on metal is always very slippery, so
we need to keep the ramps and the
run-in nice and dry. If it’s a little bit
moist on the landing, it’s okay, but if
it’s too wet on the landing, then it gets
slippery and we slide out. The Front-Flip ramp’s seen a lot of
discussion – what’s your view on
the “cheater” ramps?
You had a monopoly for a while
on throwing consistent, reliable
Double-Backflips, but others are
starting to catch up. What do you
make of the level of competition?
It’s pretty crazy. Levi’s been working
hard, I guess for this. With the Front-
Flip out there it raises the game. I’ve
only attempted it a couple of times
off that ramp, so I’m not comfortable
with it yet... I don’t really like that
Front-Flip ramp, but the level is crazy
now.
With Levi right up there, he’ll be
pretty hard to beat with his tricks and
I think they have their spot. I think
the ramps are really cool, they enable
us to do tricks that we wouldn’t
otherwise be able to do. But they’re
suited more to something like Nitro
Circus, where they have these
advancing set-ups with safer landings
and mechanical ramps to try new
things.
For competition, I think it’s hard to
keep things consistent. For a radius
ramp, everyone in the world can
make exactly the same ramp, but
for a mechanical ramp it’s different
– gauge of steel, slightly different
measurements, you can change it so
easily.
It makes it harder then. People
practise on different setups; you get
to a comp and some would be more
used to a specific ramp than others.
Then there’s the judging. That’s a
tough one. Especially when people
like Jacko Strong can do a Front Flip