Crusty Demons To Wreak Motocross Havoc Across NZ

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Blake “Bilko” Williams performs a daring stunt.

Media Release
11 October 2006

World Famous Crusty Demons To Wreak Motocross Havoc Across New Zealand

The world famous two wheeled daredevils known as the Crusty Demons today announced the largest youth sports tour ever to come to New Zealand, with six stops from Dunedin to Auckland in February 2007.

Promoter Michael Porra said the 2005/06 Tour of New Zealand and Australia became the largest touring act in history with more than 300,000 fans in the region seeing the live show.

“We’re expecting more than 70,000 New Zealanders will buy tickets to the 2007 show,” Porra said.

The 2007 Crusty Demons Kiwi Carnage Tour presented by The Rock will be the first stage of an all new world tour which will then move to Australia, India, China, the USA and Europe over the next 12 months.

“Boasting the biggest tricks in what is currently the most popular extreme youth sport in the world, the tour features an awesome rider line-up including: multi X Games gold medallist and world number one Nate Adams, X Games medallist Adam Jones, California’s quad back flipper Jon Guetter and Alaska’s Jimmy Blaze - the only man in the world to flip a snow mobile ramp to ramp,” Porra said.

“Australia’s top riders will join them with 2006 X Games medallist Bilko Williams throwing down his death defying jackhammer backflip.

“Bilko will be joined by Matt Schubring, Joel Balchin, Steve Mini and Cam Sinclair, all of whom are back flipping over 75ft.”

New Zealand’s number one rider Luke Smith will also appear in the show, along with other kiwis including 17 year old Crusty Grommett Levi Sherwood and the world’s number one female freestyler Scary Mary Perkins.

“The Crusty shows are all about pushing the boundaries, our choreographed riding segments on this tour have to be seen to be believed. It’s all about testosterone and adrenalin - the most action-packed, death defying entertainment show anywhere in the world.”

Crusty Rider Nate Adams said he was looking forward to being on tour again.

“It’s awesome to do the Crustys show with so many great riders and I can’t wait to see New Zealand for the first time,” he said.

“With the adrenalin pumping and the crowds going crazy it’s going to get pretty competitive between us as we go for bigger and gnarlier tricks to outdo each other.”

In another world first for the Crustys – the show will be performed on the first ever million dollar, fully transportable FMX set with the world’s biggest portable 40-foot wide down ramp. The new set, which requires a crew of 50 people to bump in and out, is made up of two truckloads of purpose-designed interlocking rubber flooring and a multi-million dollar sound system.

“The Kiwi Carnage Tour will also feature minibike madness, the world famous Crusty Babes a huge pyrotechnic show, heaps of giveaways and much more,” Porra said.

The tour will get underway in Dunedin on 10 February followed by Christchurch, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Auckland and Hamilton. Tickets go on sale from 20 November.

“The show will be three hours of action packed, mind blowing, death defying insanity from the finest FMX riders on the planet.”

CRUSTY DEMONS 2007 KIWI CARNAGE TOUR
Date Location Venue
February 10th Dunedin Carisbrook Stadium
February 14th Christchurch Westpac Indoor
February 17th Palmerston North Arena Manawatu
February 21st New Plymouth Yarrow Stadium
February 24th Auckland North Harbour Stadium
March 3rd Hamilton Waikato Stadium

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_FMX - The Beginning

The sport of motocross has been around for many years. The sport involved racing off road motorcycles or dirt bikes around man-made dirt tracks. The sport has made many advances and developments in superiority of both machine and track design over the years.

In 1994, filmmakers Jon Freeman and Dana Nicholson had been accumulating footage to showcase a behind-the-scenes exposé of the lifestyle of an American pro-motocross rider in action. This included footage of 145ft plus jumps, 45ft high in the air soaring over sand dunes, mountains, houses, buses and anything else secure and steep enough to hold the weight of bike and rider.

The end result was Fleshwound Films and the first video Crusty Demons of Dirt. The launch of this video was to change the face of motocross and create a sport that has become the most popular of all extreme sports today - Freestyle Motocross (FMX).

FLESHWOUND FILMS

Back in the eighties, the world was in awe of the new sport of snowboarding and like all extreme sports the West Coast of the USA and, in particular California, was the breeding ground and mecca for the growth of the sport. Fleshwound Films Co-Director, Dana Nicholson, was a top pro snowboarder living in California and traveling the world showcasing the lifestyle and sport he loved. Jon Freeman also a Co-Director of Fleshwound Films, had graduated and been working in the surfing industry making films the most notable being ’Black and White’ which featured seven times world champion Kelly Slater.

Jon Freeman was a keen social snowboarder outside of his surfing commitments and decided it was time for a change of industry after a chance meeting with Dana Nicholson in the Snowy Mountains of California. Jon expressed his interests in making a snowboard video with Dana which marked the start of their working partnership.

The unique flavor of Crusty Demons of Dirt has been a collective undertaking by the team of Jon Freeman, Dana Nicholson and Cami Freeman who joined forces more than eight years ago to produce the popular ‘Creatures of Habit’ snowboard series.

Dana starred as one of the main athletes in the film which was one of the best snowboard videos of its time. Jon went on to make another five parts of the 'Creatures of Habit' series. Dana continued to introduce Jon to riders and other industry contacts, whilst providing funny skits for Jon to add into the films. A standard in most extreme sports videos is that a diversity of sports are added in to ‘spice up’ the content of the film. In 'Creatures' part five they introduced dirt bikes.

Having seen the impact of these dirt bikes segments and after working successfully for over four years on these videos, Jon and Dana then went into partnership to create a motocross video under the banner of Fleshwound Films.

CRUSTY THE CULT

Fleshwound Films spent two years gathering footage for the first motocross film and 1994 saw the release of Crusty Demons of Dirt. The excitement and hysteria the film created was phenomenal and its success brought about a lot of imitators. Although others were trying to create motocross videos, none managed to achieve quite the same impact that Crusty had. Following the success of the first film, Crusty 2 was premiered 18 months later. Sales exceeded expectations and tripled from the first video, as the Crusty phenomenon began spreading worldwide. What was once a somewhat stagnant sport had received a positive injection of interest and proved its worthiness of being showcased internationally. People began buying the clothing worn by their heroes ‘Fleshgear’ and thousands around the world were buying bikes and heading for the racetrack, mountains, sand dunes and the sky.

With the release of Crusty 3 in 1997 and the videos and sport still booming with popularity, freestyle motocross pioneers Lofty and Brian Jordan went to Fleshwound Films with the idea of staging a freestyle motocross competition. Four months later the first competition was held in Las Vegas. This new side of the sport was looked down upon by the industry and many people said it would go nowhere, however, the excitement amongst fans indicated that they strongly disagreed.

Before long, FMX was introduced as a new sport in the 99 X games in San Francisco and was given worldwide exposure through ESPN television. FMX was then stamped as the king of ‘extreme’, becoming the number one sport at the X Games.

Competition requires riders to travel a course for 90 seconds performing as many tricks as possible, which are judged by a panel. Usually about 10 jumps are completed within that timeframe while riders compete for prize money.

Fleshwound Films undoubtedly played a crucial part in the evolution of the sport and they are still shooting Crusty Films today. Recently they released the 11th installment titled –‘Chaotic Chronicles of the Crusty Demons’. They have successfully implemented their vision into the industry, introducing the world to their friends and lifestyles whilst creating god like status of the stars of their video series. Aside from coming up with such a unique concept, key highlights for Fleshwound Films has been making it all happen and seeing it grow beyond their vision internationally. Traveling to film in Australia, Japan, Brazil, Africa and Peru, to name but a few countries, has resulted in Fleshwound Films creating 'The National Geographic of motocross'.

Apart from videos, Fleshwound also made a great success out of Fleshwound Film merchandise, which inspired their creation of the official Crusty clothing brand - Flesh gear which is a freestyle ride gear and lifestyle clothing. As for the stars of Crusty, their riding talent has spawned a cult following around the world. It has inspired lines for merchandising such as toys and clothing labels, while the riders are regarded as heroes by their fans. Their popularity has seen the global growth of freestyle motocross and associated lifestyle products.

ABOUT THE CRUSTYS
The Crusty Demons of Dirt are known for their blatant disregard for life and limb while putting their motorbikes through some of the most mind-blowing aerial stunts known to man. The Crusty Demons of Dirt launched their sport in 1994 with action videos of their outlandish bike tricks performed against the backdrops of deserts, sand dunes and arid landscapes of California. Now the most widely viewed action sports videos of all time – with 11 videos to their credit filmed in a wide range of locations such as Peru, Africa, Brazil, the USA, Japan, New Zealand and Australia – the Crustys are revered by fans of the sport as having helped to pioneer freestyle motocross.

Why are they called the Crusty Demons of Dirt? With their domain being the desert, and the pressure of performing high energy, perspiration sapping antics for the cameras, the riders would emerge at the end of a day’s filming with their faces covered in a crust of red desert sand, hence the name Crusty Demons of Dirt.

The Crusty Demons live show promoted worldwide by Rush Sports & Events International have been a massive success with shows conducted in Asia, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. In 2007 the tour will hit Europe for the first time.

Visit www.crusty.com for more info.

ENDS

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