Unless you’re driving a taxi or going out dancing, we wouldn’t advise you to have anything to do with Redbull late in the arvo ordinarily. But we can make an exception for the Redbull Sundown Shootout, a cool event-within-an-event that has become a real highlight of Cape to Cape MTB.
The Shootout takes the fastest riders at Cape to Cape and throws them round a punchy two-minute course (including one massive huck thrown in for good measure), with big time bonuses up for grabs. It’s serious on one level because the time bonuses can have a real effect on the overall standings, but one the other hand it’s a chance for riders to have a razz and put on a show for the huge crowds that come out to the pines to spectate.
This year the Shootout was bigger than ever, and rowdier too. After Peta Mullens and Paul Van Der Ploeg took out the racing (and a cool $1000 each in the process), the jump was thrown open for a freestyle contest. After a local Dunsborough lad upped the ante with a 360, chants of ‘backflip, backflip’ got freeride legend Ricky Compton sufficienly gee’d up to give a flip a crack, despite the jump being far from ideal. The end result wasn’t pretty, but the dislocated shoulder went back in smoothly and Ricky lived to ride another day.