Believe it or not, this is a fashion shoot taking place in the Bell Beach Car Park in 1982. Tom Carroll, Rabbit and Kong were all sponsored by Quiksilver and legendary lensman Peter Crawford was doing the shoot during the Rip Curl Pro. At the time Rabbit was the elder statesmen of the Quik team, Kong was still an amateur and Tom had yet to win his first world title.
Joli, who took this photo, was actually working with the video crew in the shot. “At the time I was head Photographer at Deakin University in Geelong working out of their Media Unit,” says Joli. “We’d put a little freelance crew together to actually video the heats during the contest and we were set up in the back of a van in the carpark.”
The aim was for the surfers to come back to the van and watch replays of their heat, at which time Joli would try and flog the VHS copies to the surfers. It was effectively the analogue version of today’s heat on demand. It is a genius idea, with one obvious flaw.
“All the guys just wanted to watch the ‘instant replay’ but didn’t want to pay for a copy,” laughs Joli. “I don’t think we made any money out it.”
“The van is from La Campagnola, which was located halfway between Torquay and Geelong and was the place to stop for post surf pizzas for all the crew that had come to Torquay from Melbourne or other inland spots,” say Joli. “‘Licensed Restaurant’” is used loosely because it was a tacky ‘70s decor setting in an old petrol station, but it did have good gelato ice cream and great pizzas. I’m sure if those walls could talk, there’d be some more classic stories.”
Joli, who would leave the Uni to become Quiksilver team manager not long after, also remembers the latest fashion the lads are rocking. “This was a new range, an extension of the Echo Beach style named ST Comp. Echo Beach was introduced in 1980 with radical print designs featuring polka dots, harlequins, stars and checks while ST Comp was more stripe type graphics.” While he may have a point, to us it looks like TC wearing good old fashion trackie dacks and his mum’s windcheater.
