Velocity and Vic, working thru a contest tree: The Velovic, gonna go skimming as soon as we are free. I love going up to Santa Cruz! The 101 was spectacularly clear after the monsoonal rains, it was a plein aire painting every time you looked out the window. It is only a half an hour longer than the 5 and totally worth it. Not just for the scenery, but there is the Big Sur option or a visit to Henry Cowell Redwoods that is practically in downtown Santa Cruz. Aren’t we lucky to live in California!
And it was a great time had by all! Thank you Gary and Kaleigh and Clay for an awesome week of intense competition. It is a huge task, carried out over weeks, to pull off an event. Dates, times, staff, judges, trophies, heats, live scoring, sorting prize bags, dealing with close calls, it all adds up to a tremendous effort.
Thank you!
In the Pro Final, watching Johnny Salta and Paddy Mack go at it was such a treat. The waves that looked reachable would pull away just as they broke, so it took a super human effort to schwack a turn and pull in on any given wave. Very, very few siders connected to anything. The secondary and tertiary siders though would create a multifaceted peak to hit. But you had to choose at the last second what was going to break. It went back and forth, trading turns and tricks until Johnny hooked up with the ride of the day. From way wide of the primary at the South end, he went a small mile to reach the sider very late and had to nurse it for all it was worth to reach the apex. From there on it was a bullet train back down and into a close out. Congratulations to John Salta, first winner of the Velovic. He was hungry after a very narrow loss in the Vic, two weeks before.
So many good riders to watch! Dennilson Cabello Garcia took out Dane Cameron in a fierce dual. And Dane was on fire, from a full season of preparation and determination.
Paul Carey had an epic final with Indy Bryan. Indy had a great heat, getting secondary sider after sider, with some great moves to boot. Paul Carey pulled out all the stops too, pulling a surprise fire-hydrant 360 spinner with a fist pump to finally loosen up. It was tight right down to the finish, with Paul getting the nod from the judges.
It was pure joy to watch Cory Ryan skim. He was the most stylish zen master of the skim. And he had great cookies! Thank you. Dean Poshard ranks Cory up there with Blair and Weber for style, so you can understand the stoke.
Andy Kemp ended up in a heat with his skimming buddy, Chance Boyer. It was again an all out effort for 10 minutes, back and forth, but Chance pulled into a couple nice cover ups and took it to the podium for a second against Quiotee, who skimmed incredibly well all weekend.
Kai and Daniel were going off in the Pro division. Kai got 4th in the Pros so that was some kind of impressive.
It was a treat to have Chris Chapman there every day to announce. He is the voice of Santa Cruz, kept us cracking up, and he brought donuts every day for the contest. Talk about talking about it, donuts really break the ice. Along with the donated coffee, it was classic Santa Cruz cool and foggy mornings with completely unpredictable winds. One minute the wind blew so hard on Saturday that they shut down the contest and packed it up for the day. 30 minutes later, the wind was over. That made for a long day on Sunday, but it was all worth it. Most of the time we had great conditions.
Thank you again Santa Cruz for the hospitality, the great food at the event, both days, the awesome dinner at the Point Café and the green and moist atmosphere that we all love. Thank you Gary, Kaleigh and Clay for a monumental, mental effort.
For all the skimmers it was a treat to watch you. Heats invariably went down the last wave to be decided. Judges had a tough time splitting hairs.
(And there were a lot of volunteer judges, bless you, which is crucial to keeping a contest running smoothly)
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