Articles by Rebekah Devlin

Practising ahead of Saturday night’s Acer Arena show in Sydney, the daredevil rider admitted he had not done his homework on the physics of the drop-in jump, which involves riding off an elevated platform and landing on a ramp. The ramp was not positioned correctly for the stunt and he nearly missed the crucial tilted section entirely before landing heavily on a flatter part further down. “I was like ‘this is going to hurt’," Maddison, 29, said. "I saw the end of the ramp, I could see I was going too fast so I leant right back to brace for it... I thought ‘this is going to smash me’, but I rode out of it, so I got lucky. “It was a pretty brutal impact.”  The rider was checked by a paramedic after the jump, but was cleared OK. “It’s tough to ride off the edge and make the bike go into a front dive," he said. "You want to keep the wheels under you, and not go face-forwards, but if you land in the right spot, the best technique is to be pointing towards the ground and it’s smoother. But your gut instinct takes you off and you’re trying to lift the wheels up and that’s what I did on the first jump and it was really dangerous. “It’s a tough jump, getting the angles right is the key and once I get them right I just need to ride off the edge really slowly... “There (are) calculations to work this out but I haven’t been bothered to figure it out, I just kind of roll the dice and go with it. I’m just a dare devil. “...now I sit down and think about it, it’s something I should have been doing leading into this.” Maddison is no stranger to injury – he has broken about 30 bones, ruptured his scrotum, broken his neck and almost died from viral meningitis and encephalitis when he was young. “I’m a product of western medicine, that’s the only reason why I’m here,” he said. Maddison, who stunned crowds when he jumped almost 30m onto the Arc De Triomphe in Las Vegas in 2009 and then jumped off it, admitted to still getting nervous before his stunts. “It’s what I do, I live on the edge, and it’s scary out here, it’s just what I deal with,” he said.  “It is what it is, I’m just happy to step up to the plate and take it on and whatever the consequences are, I’m happy with them.  “I try not to think about what could go wrong.” Maddison’s first child Kruz was born in the US last month and he has only spent seven days with his son because of the Demons tour. Kruz has encountered some health problems, which has made the separation even more difficult to cope with. “It’s been hard for me to stay focused and grounded,” he said.  “It’s killing me.”

Jonathan Lahy-Neary started Tanks For Everything in Christchurch about five years ago – after a long flight from London.  He blames a lack of sleep – or a dodgy airline meal – but he woke with an idea, to import some tanks and let people drive them.The former IT manager has been full-time at it for a year now.  They have half a dozen vehicles ranging from a jeep all the way up to the Russian T-55AM2 tank and the 52 tonnes Centurion.And it’s a daunting line-up - I was scared just belting around the course in the jeep, that thing flies… and feels like it’s gonna tip.  “Eeek, I don’t want to roll a tank,” I thought as my knees starting knocking together!Then I realised it’s a tank…. it goes through, over and crushes things, it doesn’t tip.  So we started off small, well, in tanks terms anyway, with the FV-432 armoured personnel carrier.  Despite being terrified before stepping in, it wasn’t long before I was wearing that dopey expression only pure joy brings.The guns have been disabled on all the tanks, which sounds like it would be disappointing, but just driving the hulking machinery is more than enough to get the adrenaline pumping.Then it was time to climb up into the Centurion, a British-built, ex-Australian army tank used in the Vietnam war.  To drive the Centurion, you need to be able to (semi) drive a manual…. Bunny hops aren’t advisable when there is a thick metal ledge right at teeth height.Weighing in at 52 tonnes, this sucker gets just 50m out of one litre of petrol - try that at the height of an oil crisis.  And how’s this for cool - you can even arrange to run over cars… perhaps the boss’s car for a work team-building exercise!If driving the tank sounds a bit too scary, you can always be driven around by Lahy-Neary and they even do kid’s birthday parties.Based an easy 30 minute drive out of the centre of Christchurch, it’s still remote enough to be able to run a tank around the paddock without the neighbours complaining.The tanks themselves aren’t that hard or expensive to buy – you can pick one up for a lazy $100,000 from a dealer.  But be warned, the maintenance costs are prohibitive.An hour’s driving time requires anywhere up to eight hours maintenance – remember we’re dealing with 50 year old machinery here.  You really don’t have to be an adrenaline junkie to enjoy this, but you do need to do a bit of saving.With packages starting at $495 to drive two vehicles and going up to $995 to drive all the biggies, it can be pricey. But you only live once… and how often do you get to woo hoo out loud these days? www.tanksforeverything.co.nz  

While being Posh Spice affords you the luxury of being snotty to everyone while wearing all the best labels, being Baby Spice means everyone fusses over you. Sporty Spice is the pick of the bunch.The image of a sports star is undeniably sexy - think the toned, tanned looks of Maria Sharapova or Shane Crawford.The same theory applies for motor vehicles. You'd always want to be a sports car if you were a car – why would you opt to be a family wagon or worse a people mover? The sports car is glam, fun, risque – it's the marines, surgery, the hottest of the careers. I've always considered myself a bit of a Sporty Spice.I'm a sports nut – will sit and watch hours of it on the telly. I even play a bit. But, sadly, I'm not quite as good I'd like to be.Thankfully, the Mazda3 doesn't have any such problems living up to its sports title.With gorgeous leather-trimmed seats, racy red and blue (go Demons) interior display and a cute little backside, she is just like the Russian tennis sensation – but without the grunting. She goes very fast and, as they say in commercials, handles like a dream.In fact, it has just about every add-on you could wish for, radio controls on the steering wheel, chrome touches and funky styling.The need for speed is a calling card of a sports car, but this little lady certainly doesn't like the lower speeds. The speedo starts its measurements at the equivalent of 6 o'clock, where many cars start around 8 o'clock.Maybe it was just a freak thing because of my height, the way I sit (I really must develop better posture) or the shape of the steering wheel – yes, I know it's round. – but I seriously couldn't see how fast I was going below about 40km/h.Thankfully, I didn't hit too many school zones or roadworks. That aside, the real fun began when I almost became mechanic Spice.Coming out of a concert late one night, I discovered my sports star had an injury – a decided lean to the right. It'd pulled a hamstring (code for picking up a puncture).My father had the good sense when I got my driver's licence to teach me how to change a tyre: "You never know when you'll need to do it," he warned. He was right.Sadly, though, no amount of muscle power was getting the wheel off. When it had been constructed, the wheel had basically glued itself to the axle, meaning that despite three of us pulling, we still could not get the wheel off (and yes we did remove the nuts; don't assume I'm a use less woman). Eventually admitting defeat, we lowered the car and as if out of spite, off the tyre came.Quickly replacing it with the Lego-land-style spare, I headed home, then straight to the dealership the next morning.While sports stars can be high-maintenance, I'm sure this one usually isn't; I just didn't treat her right.So if you're as good at sport as Pom Phil Tufnell is at fielding, your answer may well lie in a sports car.And then you can finally respond to the Spice Girls' smash hit, Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.LOVE IT LEAVE ITMazda 3 SP23Price: $32,080LOVE ITCute little backside (again, let's not mention Serena Williams) and the red dash display, we all know red goes faster.LEAVE ITThe crazy speedo, why start so low, I couldn't see what speed I was doing below 40km/h.