Red Bull Riders Cup Second Stop will be at Seaside Park in Ventura on March 24-26

The first event of the 2009 Red Bull Riders Cup season, the nations’
premier high school surfing competition, got off to a dramatic start
this week as the best high school surfers in Santa Cruz battled it out
under sunny skies and solid conditions.  Participating high schools
included Santa Cruz High, Aptos High, Scotts Valley High, Harbor High
and Soquel High School. 

The competition was fierce, but in the end Aptos High took the victory
from runners-up Santa Cruz High.  Aptos High’s win earned them a spot
in the Red Bull Riders Cup Championship, which will be held on June 6-7
at the Upper Trestles in San Clemente.  The series’ next Regional Title
will be up for grabs on March 24-26, when the Red Bull Riders Cup
travels to Seaside Park in Ventura.

The first three days of the four-day competition were held at The Hook,
and it was local favorites Santa Cruz High and Aptos High that came
through the early rounds to advance to Thursday’s regional finals at
Pleasure Point.  In the final game Aptos High won the toss and sent
Santa Cruz into the water first.  Santa Cruz got off to a good early
start, posting a respectable 21.1 in the top of the first period. 
Aptos High’s decision to surf second proved a great one when they hit
the water and were greeted with very solid set waves to take the lead
with a score of 23.8.

Ian Walsh’s 6th annual Menehune Mayhem Surf event will be held
Saturday, March 28th at Maui’s Ho’okipa Beach Park. Walsh, an advocate
for introducing and instilling a passion for surfing in Hawaii’s youth,
created the free event with the help of O’Neill and Red Bull as a way
giving back to the children and teens of Maui as well as showcasing
what the surf culture and sport have to offer.

Red Bull and the National Surf League are kicking off the 4th annual
Red Bull Riders Cup at the Hook and Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, Ca.
March 16-19, 2009.

The schools are fired up with Harbor High
looking to avenge their close loss to Soquel High School in last years
regional final. With previous experience under their belt, Aptos and
Scotts Valley High will be ready with fresh Game strategies.

“We’re
fired up,” said Santa Cruz High head coach Joe Hudson who is looking to
regain respect after a shocking overtime loss in the first round last
year “The team has been practicing hard and we’re gunning for the
title.”

By now we all know what a dynamic tow team Carlos Burle and Maya
Gabeira make. He knows all there is to know about tackling the biggest
waves in the world and she looks good doing it. But it’s not always
huge tubes and glorious post-session stories. Sometimes things go
tragically wrong, like the above photo. Red Bull Surfing caught up with
Carlos to find out exactly how him and Maya ended up getting sucked
over…with their ski. Here’s his take:

“Long story short, these
jet skis are not designed for tow-in and have a key that was designed
with the intention to minimizing risks. You wear the key on your right
wrist, and in case you fall the key is pulled and the ski stops.
Because you move a lot when you are driving the ski during a tow
session, sometimes the key comes off. It’s happened a few times with me
before, but I always managed to get out of the situation. What was
bizarre this time was that when we started the session the key came off
and Maya said to me, ‘This is dangerous and it may happen in a
situation that you won’t be able to restart it.’

It’s baaaaaack! The Red Bull Riders Cup is back for another season, so hold on to your graduation caps and get ready. Last year it was Carlsbad High School that took top honors. Who will it be this time around? Amassing over 34 high schools from eight distinct surfing regions around the country, the Red Bull Riders Cup is the premier high school surf function. While 34 teams will enter, only one will hoist the cup. The season is coming on quick, so be ready.

Stay tuned as the season gets underway in Santa Cruz next week.


What is Red Bull Riders Cup? Here’s the skinny:

The Tournament: Using the National Surf League’s “Game” format, in a single-elimination
“march-madness” style battle royale 34 high schools are
entered into 8 regional qualifiers. Four high schools from each region make it to the national championships.

The Format: Start time is at 4pm after school, and the entire Game spans under 2 hours. 3 total periods, 2 heats per period, teams alternate surfing each heat. Each heat is 12 minutes long. Each team is allotted 5 “time outs” per game of 2 minutes each.

The Team: Teams of 12 Athletes max: 4 starters, 2 substitutes and 2 non-active reserves (2.0 GPA min) Head coach with at least 1 assistant coach (water coach). Each team has 2 substitutes in the water ready; subs can sub in only once per heat.

It was a long hard slog to get to the end of the Quiksilver Pro, but for Adriano De Souza and Joel Parkinson
it was well worth the effort. Adriano finished a very respectible
second, while Parko took his first event win in 26 attempts. Both are
now squarely in the driver’s seat with the 2009 ASP World Tour season underway.

With
the effects of Cyclone Hamish pounding the Gold Coast, early in the
week contest organizers made the call to move the event site from
Snapper Rock down to Kirra,
which obviously got everybody good and frothy. By the time the final
day of competion rolled around the surf was a tumoltuous six to eight
feet. “Cyclone Hamish turned it on for us,” reported Mick Fanning, who
fell to Parko in an epic semifinal duel. “It’s one of those days where
you
can have one of the best surf’s of your life and one of the worst
surf’s of your life, it wasn’t the best surf of my life but it was
definitely up there.”

Click To Continue Reading & See The Photos…

“It was a fun heat,” said Mick Fanning, still dripping wet after his quarterfinal against Damien Hobgood. “I was lucky to get the jump on Damo at the start. I wanted to wait for a good opening wave and it came. On that 9.93, I went into it and saw it chandelier’ing so I reset my feet and just tried to hit it strong. It went all white and I was lucky it had an opening. It was pretty fun.”

With thumping, short-interval swell, contest organizers had moved the event site at Snapper down to the big groin at Kirra, which suited Mick perfectly fine. And now, with his win against Damien, and Joel Parkinson’s win over CJ Hobgood, the two old friends will square off in their own backyard. They take to the water for the first semifinal, which will also happen to be the first heat of the day when things resume.

With the wrath of Cyclone Hamish hitting the Gold Coast right now it
would appear we could be in for a stormy, albeit interesting,
conclusion to the Quiksilver Pro. Event organizers haven’t officially called the contest on yet, but that’s the early world out of Australia.

“No rain yet, but it’s not far away,” wrote photographer Peter “Joli” Wilson
in an email I just received from him. He’s lived on the Goldy for years
and has seen all its various moods. “The comp will probably wrap up
today. Overcast and very windy. The weather maps look radical,
especially the cloud map. Surf is big and washy and it looks like the
contest will run at the Coolangatta/Kirra big groin.”

I won’t get into all the
intriguing match-ups that we’re looking at in Round 4–namely Jordy Smith vs. Bede Durbidge, Julian Wilson vs. Damien Hobgood, and Mick
Fanning vs. Jeremy Flores–so for now just stay close to the computer.