20,000 riot in Indonesia

We arrived in Indonesia and headed off for the first round here in Tegal, on the west of Java island. We heard it was only a small place, but it wasn't too bad when we got here. Friendly people, who were all seemed excited about the Powercross series when we did all the media and publicity the few days before the event. Obviously we made them a little to excited though, when the stadium was pretty much full to capacity before we even arrived at the venue at 10am on Saturday for the racing. It was probably the hottest event I've ridden in, the thermometer said the mid-30's, but the humidity was at breaking point. All of us, racers and FMX'ers were feeling exhausted from the personal clouds we were carrying with us. As for me, well, I kind of had problems from the start when we found the KTM 250 2 Stroke that was promised, was still held up in customs! So that ended in me having to ride either a KTM 4-stroke and use my suspension (since KTM's can actually swap over which is very smart!) or use the RM250 2stroke that turned up, but with no suspension. With my busted ankles already, I took the option of riding the 4stroke and using suspension to at least save myself. The next problem then arose, there was only 2 KTM's for 4 KTM riders. 3 racers, Kim, Kieran and Dean, plus myself as the Freestyler. So I had to swap bikes with Kim after he finished racing we would strip his bike down, put my suspension, handlebars, plastics and seat on. Then I would do FMX practice and when I come back in we'd have to strip it all down and put Kim's settings back in.Suffice to say, this went on 10 times and it takes 15 minutes minimum to strip a bike and put all new stuff in. 10 x 15 is 150 minutes, or 2 and a half hours I spent taking a bike apart in the hottest part of the day, and believe me, it'sreally hot and humidhere! So I was absolutely spent from that.But everything was ok, we came up with a solution to the problem, and the show must go on. that's why we're here really. So we did our first show, and it all went well, considering the lighting couldn't be moved until after the last race. That was fine, we could see enough for a standard show and then the last show would be when the boys flip and the crowd really got into it.The next problem was when there was only a limit of about 5,000 people who could get into the stadium. And from our understanding, there were 20,000 people outside the stadium who couldn't get in. Hot conditions perhaps, or just that they wanted to see us ride so badly, but the nice warmth of the Indonesian locals spilled over just a touch, when they started protesting.We didn't think much of it, well, we didn't even know as riders. But our pit area was being pelted by rocks towards the end of the show, and we had security coming to protect us. I love that their weapon of choice was a big heavy stick. And these security guards are tough looking guys too!So we had to move to another part of the pit area so we couldn't get hit, after an unlucky bystander was smashed with a rock. We thought that was it. Nope, on the infield, the 4 x 5 lap race was being run as the crowd started breaking through the fences. By the time the Aussie boys got back to the pit area and we were ready to go out for our last show, we were quickly told that we wouldn't be able to do the show, and that we had to pack everything up and quickly get out of the stadium.It was a pretty weird thing to have, because they were desperate to see the backflip over here, but we did what we were told. Then it started becoming clear as to the severity of it all. The 20,000 protester's had managed to break through to inside the stadium and onto the track. I looked around the corner and the entire track was covered in fans and disgruntled protester's. They turned violent and even somebody had been attacked with a samurai sword and had their throat slashed. Things were getting bloody nervous by that point.We then had all the police and security surrounding us and making sure we got out of the back entrance into the coming bus to take us back to the hotel. We had to leave the secure part of the pits into the outside where security were swinging their sticks at the fans and we just had to keep on moving. I've never seen 12 gear bags full of gear get thrown in a bus so fast. I think we'll probably find a few broken helmet visor's in the calamity too. So that was our first show. What a crazy way to do it.On the way to Tegal, our first round, I said to the FMX boys who have never been overseas before, that at some point throughout our trip, there will probably be an event that is out of our control, that could seem weird or scary at the time but will hopefully work out. Who would have thought that in 4 days of being in Indonesia that we experienced that. Ahh, all something to laugh about later and it makes for one hell of a story to remember.It was still a really cool event though, don't let it be said we didn't have fun. We all had fun and made light of the situation. The FMX show went really well and the crowd loved it. You could hear the collective gasp of the 5,000 on every jump which is great, and it makes you appreciate what you do. In Australia you don't hardly get a clap even when you see guys do flips, but over here they love it. They haven't seen it before and they're really excited to come out and watch.Check back really soon as the TVOne footage will hopefully be up on Youtube by Tuesday and I'll link it on here to show you exactly what we got up to, and also some photo's from the event!