Winning events, giving eloquent interviews and avoiding the party scene – Aussie Joel Parkinson (like former president elect Barack Obama) is doing everything right. He looks set to become El Presidente aka 2010 world champion. But, there’s been an unforseen hiccup on the road to glory, a third round loss to Californian Rob Machado at The Hurley Pro at Trestles. The shock loss giving the lower ranked wolves a sniff of world title blood. Tracksmag.com was up at 2:30 AM watching online and was lucky enough to speak with the ex – world tour surfer and fuzzy headed crowd favourite Machado as he towelled down after the win.
Rob, big win against Parko?
It’s pretty cool and I’m super stoked for sure. I guess it keeps the title race alive, which I’ll enjoy watching unfold when I’m on the couch later in the year.
Tell us about the heat. You caught your two best waves (5:57 and 5:70) around the middle of the heat and stayed busy catching seven waves in total to Parko’s five. Strategy?
It was a kinda weird heat in a way. There was a fair amount of wind swell in there and the waves were really peaky, but it was fun. I wanted to keep moving for sure and catch waves to establish some rhythm.
I was all set to ask how it felt to knock top 5 surfer Taj Burrow out yesterday and now it’s the number one ranked surfer and world champion favourite Parko, this is huge?
It’s wild – I think he had an ankle injury or some problem like that maybe but I’m not sure? That may have played a hand in it – I don’t know. I know it makes things real interesting with these guys going into a big string of events here, going into the European leg so, hey, It’s definitely going to be exciting.
This is your chance to get back and surf with these guys again, you’ve been living the free surfer dream but hey, ‘The Drifter’ still likes to compete.
Yeah, well it’s good dude. Hurley stepped up and blew up the US open and made that huge, they sponsor this, The Hurley Pro at Trestles. And they obviously came to me and were like, ‘Yeah, dude. Do you wanna surf in it?’ And I was like, ‘well, alright, yeah! Okay.’ I mean I still like to compete it’s fun. Get out there and have the opportunity to get out there and surf against theses guys. I friggen love watching Parko surf! He’s one of my favourite guys to watch – and Taj. You know? And friggen Kelly [Slater] and Dane [Reynolds] and I get to surf heats against these guys. I get there and I’m like, ‘Alright, cool. Lets do this.’
You still had plenty left in you when you dropped off tour and perhaps have a little in the bank you want to unload?
Yeah, I think I felt like my career on the world tour got cut short a little bit, you know? But I also look at that as a blessing as I went on to do other things I really wanted to do and changed my whole kinda perspective on what I was going to do. It still feels good and yeah, I’ve still got a little in the tank that I wanna use up.
It must be a hard transition to make from tour to free surfer when you just drop off tour?
When it happened and all of a sudden I was off the tour – I was pretty shocked. And I lost my main sponsor. Off the tour no sponsor I was like, ‘Dude, what am I going to do?’ It was like a snap of the fingers and like you disappear. I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t wanna do that.’ It made me step back look at everything – it gave me the ability to experiment and ride boards that I wanted to ride all these years and just sort of expand my mind. It turned out to be a blessing for sure.
There’s a stubborn mindset with many so-called anti-establishment anti-competition free surfers that you can’t do both? It’s fun right? Doesn’t mean you don’t love getting away from the crowds or whatever just because you also love to compete?
Oh, yeah. You gotta respect these guys dude. This is intense, the world tour, these 45 guys or whatever are constantly figuring out their deal, focusing on their equipment, their bodies their super dialled in and I totally respect that and I love watching them surf. Free surfers too, man. You can’t just kick back ride a bunch of waves and go, ‘Yeah, groovy man.’ You gotta be on your game too, chasing swells and be on it. It’s a job – as much as it doesn’t feel like it is, it is. So it’s cool to kinda blend them both. I appreciate all aspects of surfing – I love everything that’s going on. The guys that just want to do aerials on every wave – that’s rad. These guys are flying down the line and doing crazy shit these days, dude. So, cool.
It’s a healthy pursuit either way?
It’s surfing, dude, there’s so many different avenues – there’s guys getting into a hundred foot waves, and your like, ‘Dude, that’s gnarly, man.’ Those guys are crazy – it’s cool.
Hypothetically if you were offered the opportunity to get back on tour full time would you take it?
That’s something I’d definitely have to think about but it’s intense man I don’t know. I just surfed three heats and I’m going, ‘Gosh man, I got to get some work done (on the body) – I’m starting to tighten up.’
We’re getting older?
We’re getting old, dude and it’s not easy. No matter what you do you’re just not used to surfing like you do when you surf a heat. You can’t go out and practice that and I definitely don’t.
Must feel good to raise that personal bar on such a big stage, nice feeling of self-satisfaction?
It does, it feels good. To go out and compete at that level with these guys and people are stoked to see you surf. And like you said it made me push my game for sure.
You just witnessed Kelly smash Brett Simpson in heat three of the day do you guys face up next?
No he’s on the other half, I’ve got Dane.
We’ll have to wait for the classic match up between you and Kelly?
Yeah, we got a way to go before we meet. Me and Dane – that’ll be fun.
Cheers Rob appreciate your time.
Right on brother, get some sleep.
Pics: Courtesy of Hurley.
