FMX Media

Towards the end of 1999, a bloke called Michael Gilbert knocked on publisher Peter Morrison’s door at Morrison Media. He had an idea for a new motocross magazine with the lifestyle dial turned right up. It would become Freerider MX.
“It was a great fit with our other action sports titles and just seemed a natural progression,” offered Peter Morrison.

Gilbert produced one magazine in 1999 before Aussie moto-journalist Andrew Clubb took over the reins, but it was Grant “Goba” O’Brien who distilled the freestyle voice from the chain chatter when he got involved a few issues later.

“The 2000 Melbourne X Games was my first real feature story for the magazine – my interview with Carey Hart – and then it just went from there,” Goba explained.

Current editor Simon Makker recalls the shift as the magazine moved away from race and its focus became freestyle: “The riders and contributors really took ownership of the magazine and the relationship between the two groups saw it continually grow,” he explains.

While Australia’s dirt bike industry kept a suspicious watch over the evolution of freestyle, some key players ensured the magazine’s survival.

“Stu Gundry from Platypus was right into it with Moto XXX – he was at the forefront,” recalls Mark Petersen, a surf photographer who shot – and later sold ads – for Freerider MX.

FMX commentator and early devotee of the sport Justin “Bushy” Bush was involved in the planning of the very first issue: “Racers were serious about their sport and FMXers were seen as a bunch of punks just trying to do something different,” recalls Bushy. “We knew there was a vacant place for a full-blown FMX mag – it gave us a community that could feed the FMX machine.”

That industry support increased year-on-year and the magazine achieved what no other FMX publication has been able to do worldwide by celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2009.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to have had great people working on the mag since the beginning — legends like Goba and Smakka who are both still running the show today — Smakka on the mag and Goba online,” Morrison offers.

Freerider MX wasn’t the only media initiative to fuel the sport in Australia.
“Homegrown Maniacs was the brainchild of Leith ‘Holtzy’ Holtzman – a guy who has turned his pockets inside-out numerous times to push FMX forward in Australia,” asserts Bushy, who still works with Holtzy on his Homegrown Maniacs TV show.

“In the early days, Holtzy would create road trips and film up and comers ripping in their own backyard for the Homegrown Maniacs FMX movies.”

A defining moment for Holtzy came after calling Platypus Distribution’s Stu Gundry before embarking a road trip to film Homegrown Maniacs 1.

“Stu had some phone numbers of unknown kids who were chasing him for sponsorship. He had no idea how good they were because no one knew anything at that stage,” begins Holtzy.

“In that one big road trip, I discovered most of that first generation of stars. I filmed Luke Urek and John Flint in Victoria, then onto NSW where I filmed Dayne Kinnaird, Noel Cotter, Rhys Dulieu and the Hall Brothers — Dan and Mike — all for the first time ever. Then I finished up with the only ‘known’ freestyle rider of the time: Troy Carroll and his brother Quentin. Throw in Josh Maley and James Dance in my home state and those names filled a lot of the early magazines.

“It was a special time and to this day I’m amazed at what I was able to achieve on almost no money at all. I spent a lot of time hitching, catching buses and sleeping on floors,” he laughs.

– Derek Morrison