Jack Freestone, Torching Behind The Burner at D-Bah, Australia

Jack Freestone’s heading to California tomorrow. It’ll be his second time there, the first having been in december last year, shortly after he sat down for a candid interview with Stab (which appeared in issue 46.) During his first trip to the US, he surfed, met the people he needed to meet and went crazy for two days in Hollywood with good buddy Mitch Crews. But this time, his plans are different: “I’m doing the Nike 6.0 Lowers Prime contest,” Jack told Stab this morning over the phone, from a Billabong lifestyle shoot at Miami on the Gold Coast. “I absolutely love the States, I’m so pumped to go back. I’ve still got two years left in the juniors, but I’m mostly doing QS contests from now on, like the Lowers one. They’re so much more challenging, the scoring is much harder than Pro Juniors because the level of surfing is so high and everyone wants it so bad. But I’ll still do a few juniors, like Keramas (in Bali), purely for good waves.” After the States, Jack’s heading to Brazil to hang out during the Billabong Pro, Rio De Janeiro. But his fingers are crossed for a wildcard entry: “There’s been talk of it. Basically, if someone gets injured or pulls out, I’m in.” Yesterday Jack surfed D-bah with Mitch Crews and Thom Pringle, which is when Matty O’Brien fired-off this awesome photo. The 2010 junior world champ said it was kinda hard to surf the cross-shore two-footers but still had a blast. So what’s changed in Jack’s life since winning the Junior World Title? “Nothing,” he says. “People know who I am a little more… I have more of an image. I love it, but it’s not all that different.”   Y’can check out some of Matty’s other awesome work at his site, 28 Monsters.