Justin Sweeney
From: I'm from the Shore, I was born about 2 kilometer's from Ballistics. Now I live in Waterview, I moved there to be closer to the greatest wakeskating spot in Auckland "The Lincs".
Wakeskating: Is the best fun you can have wearing shoes in the water! My friend Darryl took me wakeboarding a long time ago, after a few tries at that he suggested I try wakeskating since I skateboard a lot (in hindsight I'm pretty sure he instantly saw no future in wakeboarding for me cause I didn't like the really long shorts that were popular with strappers at the time, plus I complained a lot about the bindings hurting my girly feet). After skinning my knuckles really bad a few times and generally being pretty crap at getting the bloody thing out of the water I learned Shove its which at the time seemed flash, so I decided wakeskating was way cooler than wakeboarding - I was right.
Sponsors: Since Cassette wakeskates wound up I retired from official sponsors but I would like to say a huge thank you to Ballistics, DVS Shoes, Matix clothing, Xbox and Red Bull. They all hook me up with the best gear for wakeskating and my apre' wake activities. Thank you Justin, Richie, & Dean at Ballistics, Sam and Conan at S&S, Tolan at Xbox and Ivan and Gavin at Red Bull. Cassette for life!
Favorite trick: Backside bigspins are pretty fun, but these days most of the good tricks go down when I'm driving Nic so maybe driving the ski is my best trick.
Awards: I drove Young Sid to the Music Awards in my work truck once? That's probably my best "awards" story but since this is about waking, I won some contests a while ago, I'm currently sitting on back to back 4ths at the Nationals, but I beat Nic and he's better than me so I reckon it was rigged and we both should have been on the podium.
Lows: I've hurt me left knee twice which was a bit stink, but no real lows, I'm a lucky guy, life's good!
Highs: I don't endorse getting high but I wont judge you.
Closing statement: I know for a fact that Thomas Horrell has been wakeskating again recently and he's the greatest that's ever been towed by a boat on anything, anyone who wakes would be well served by watching any footage of Thomas so they can to see how its supposed to look. Also, I'm predicting 2011 to be the wakeskate comeback year for Ivan Mennim!