Today was another lay-day at the Billabong Pipe Masters. If you were a pro, waiting for the contest to resume, how would you spend your downtime? Sit around wallowing in self-pity, obsessing over every aspect of your next opponent's style and game? Nope. You'd go to a bar with your buddies and scream your favourite tunes at the top of your lungs. Well, you would at least if you were Owen Wright. n caught up with the silky goofy-footer to see how he's been filling his days.
Stab: No waves again today, huh Owen?
Owen: Nah. I went for a little wave out at Off The Wall. It was alright, I wasn't out for that long. It’s pretty slow over here, there’s not a lot going on.
What's your mental game-plan during lay-days?
I guess to stay mentally prepared I actually do nothing – just not try to stay mentally prepared. I don’t really see the point of trying to think about it. I’ve just been having fun. I find it really easy not to think about the next heat. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem to bother me. It’s more of a holiday than anything for me.
How've you been filling the waveless days?
We’ve been going into town a little bit, checking Waikiki out, watching old movies on the cable TV, looking at the swell forecast. We went to a Karaoke bar the other night, that was pretty funny. It was just a small little joint. There was hardly anybody there, an old Chinese dude was asleep in his chair. We just rocked up and started singing karaoke.
Who brought it?
This chick that came, she was killin’ it, but I rate myself pretty highly. I sung a bunch of old school songs, one of ‘em was Patience, by Guns ‘n’ Roses. (Matt) Wilko was singing pretty good. Dom Wills had a good dig at the karaoke as well. It was so fun, everybody was just laughing and mucking around. We weren’t really paying attention to what we were singing.
Has the contest had the usual flash and trash that Pipe often attracts?
The other day when the comp was on there were a few people, but I’ve seen more people there when it’s just been big, good Pipe and no contest. I think a lot of the tourists will only come out to see the big waves of Pipeline. There’s just a bunch of photographers, free-surfers and 'QS guys. Just the usual basically.
Many girls floating around?
It seems there were more when I first came over, before the comp’d started. There’s still a few getting ‘round though – it’s Hawaii!
Injury seems to have made Joel Parkinson more hungry, and you've drawn him in your first heat.
It’s definitely a tough first round heat, he’s won the last two Triple Crowns so it’s going to be a good heat. I feel like I’m a worthy opponent though. I’m just psyched for it, to tell you the truth. It’s the last contest and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be psyched if I can find some little lefts to get barrelled on. That’d be pretty cool. I think it’ll be a pretty good heat. It would be good to get some barrels here. Or even go left on the Tour for a change, haha. Hopefully Huey pulls through for us, we kind of didn’t get Chopes (Teahupoo).
– Simon Nicholas
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