2011 started off really well. After winning the NZ Championships I was definitly riding at my peak. I joined the rest of the Nitro Circus Live Crew on a record breaking tour of New Zealand. Over 100,000 people attended the 5 shows and I'm sure they were all blown away by it.
We got to do a lot of fun stuff on this tour. Skydiving, white water rafter and Bungy Jumping just to name a few. It was a great experience to travel NZ with such a good group of people.
We had a two week break between the NZ and the OZ tour so i went back to mudgee and had a couple of weeks practise before heading out on the
4 weeks tour.
The first stop in Albury got rained out postponed to the following day. It poured all day again and we didnt think the show would run. It was 5 minutes before the show was due to start when the sun came out.
Bilko and i were over the road at the leagues club playing pool when we got the call so we legged it back, jumped in our gear and did a really good show. I even won the MVC (most valuable circus member) award for riding so well.
We hit the road to Newcastle and did another great show. Then we hit the road for Canberra.
Canberra was by far the worst show I've been a part of it.
Travis went to hospital an hour before the show with blood clots in his leg. After the announcer told the crowd that Trav wouldnt be there the show had a bad feeling to it.
I went out to do my combo section in the show and on my last jump things really went pear shaped and i had the worst crash i've ever had.
I went to do a 4 trick combo- a holy grab, to one hand indy, rock solid, to no hand lander. I messed it up from the start and lost the bike. Because i lost the bike from the start i was able to float from the lowest point of the jump up to the highest and back down again all while watching the bike float further and further away. I fell for about 3 seconds but it felt like an hour.
On landing i pretty much destroyed everything in my shoulder along wit any hopes of riding dirtbikes again in 2011.
I completely tore my rotator cuff, along with a bunch of other ligaments and breaking my arm too.
It was by far the worst pain i've been through. I had to have a shoulder reconstruction in April and now 2 months later i'm only just starting to use my arm again. I have another month or so of rehab before i have to have another reconstruction to fix the rest of it.
Definitely not the way I wanted my year to go but things could always be worse. So right now i'm just doing all i can to get healed up as fast as possible. I'm really starting to miss. I've been told i wont ride again this year but i'm pretty confident ill be back on earlier. Fingers crossed!
"Steve Mini has always been regarded as one of Australia's most solid FMX riders. He's been part of the Showtime Yamaha team since the early 2000's, has been on more live FMX tours than he can even remember, and competed on the IFMXF FMX World Championships in 2008 and 2009. But funnily enough, the laid-back Aussie has never really been a regular when it comes to Australian contests. In 2009 he schooled a star-studded field at the South Australian FMX Championships, but went more than 18 months before popping his head up at another Aussie contest.
Now he's ridden -- and won -- three FMX comps in as many months with his super-smooth style, flawless extension and vast bag of tricks, and has just ended his long-standing relationship with Yamaha YZ250's in favor of a Kawasaki KX250F. Yep, it seems Mini's turning over a new leaf, so we caught up with him after his back-to-back wins at the FMX Battle in New Zealand to get the skinny."
