The SPY crew headed to Virginia Beach, Va., Aug. 22-28, for the 49th Annual East Coast Surfing Championships. Impending Hurricane Irene sped things along for all involved, forcing heats to run from sun-up through sundown.
While the SPY crew held it down in the sand, our surf team held it down in the water. Cody Thompson and 2011 NSSA/Surfing American National Champion Parker Coffin, 15, surfed their ways into the quarterfinals of the WQS 4-Star-rated event, with Evan Thompson making it into the semi-finals of the Pro Junior!
SPY once again proved to be the crowd pleaser with giveaways and a shooting gallery that attracted thousands of spectators scrambling to get their hands on some SPY booty.
In spite of a looming storm threat, our posse decided to hold-off evacuation plans and, instead, partnered with a local watering hole, The Boxx, on a pre-hurricane, over-21 shindig.
Cody, aka DJ Code Red, kept the party moving and the shoes shuffling with a body-rocking DJ set that thumped well into the early morning hours.
Last call at the Boxx heralded a shift of venues, kicking-off an after-hours soiree where the only rules were no cameras, no stories and no hard feelings.
With the final days of the competition canceled due to the hurricane, SPY took the high road (which paralleled the prescribed evacuation route) with heads held high and stomachs turning from the previous night that officially didn’t happen.
There’s no doubt that the SPY crew helped out ol’ Irene by doing a little damage of its own…
With only 2 days left in the US Open, Spy’s John John Florence has been and continued to be one of the most dominant surfers at the US Open. John John is scheduled to surf in the Men’s round 5 (8-10:03am) and heat 3 against Kolohe, a battle of the new generation. Following that is the Pro Junior semi finals (12:59-1:40pm), heat 2 against Kolohe, Dylan Goodale and Colin Moran.
To see all the action live via webcast and to get more info and photo check US Open of Surfing.
Here is a few words that I grabed from the ASP press release today:
John John Florence (Oahu, HI), 17, was another young Hawaiian to ignite the high-performance peaks on offer at Huntington Beach to take his Round of 24 heat over Brazilian talent Miguel Pupo, 19.
“I was super-stoked to get through that Round of 24 heat because Miguel (Pupo) is so gnarly,” Florence said. “I was definitely pretty nervous going into that heat, but I just got lucky. There are so many fun waves out there.”
Florence, who is also on the verge of qualification for the ASP World Title Series at the midway mark in the season, is hoping to maintain his form at the Nike US Open of Surfing to continue to climb the ASP World Ranking.
“That was a big heat for me to get through to try and qualify,” Florence said. “That’s my goal to get to the World Tour, I’d be so stoked, I’ve put in a lot of hard work and so far it looks pretty good.”
Some other recent Spy doing during the US Open have been a signing that went off on Thursday at Jack Surfboards on the corner of Maint St and PCH. Alana Blanchard, Ben Bourgeois, Torrey Meister and Parker Coffin were there signing and making it a good time. We had screaming matches and a dance off for Spy product and a ol time in HB.
Friday morning we all met up down the way at Golden West St and welcomed our Boot Camp winner to a day at the beach. They got to hang out and surf with the same crew of surfers from the Jack Surfboards promo, Alana Blanchard, Ben Bourgeois, Torrey Meister and Parker Coffin. Good times on the beach teaching the Boot Camp winners how to surf. They all stood up for their 1st time and the smiles were brighter than the sun.
Shred For Cred is a retail/athlete marketing event held by SPY. The event is a surf contest/ bowling tournament where the winners surf and bowl against SPY surf stars. The overall finalist brings home a pocket filled with cash and some kick ass SPY gear. The winner also gets to bring back a bag full of product to hand off to their store to sell. That’s free money to their store, which gives them hero status in the work place.
The first stop was Ponce Inlet, FL. The SPY surf stars were Ben Bourgeois aka Benny B and Cody Thompson. The waves were chest high and very rippable. A special thanks goes out to all the loc dogs that let us have our surf contest during a wave starved summer that was blessed with a one day swell during our event. The contest was surfed on retro boards or personal shortboards. If you chose the retro you got an extra 2 points added to your top 2 waves. Whether is was retro’s or shortboards, we saw some serious ripping from the surf shop employees.
After the contest was done it was off to the local bowling alley where the fried food and beer was plenty and gutter balls were frequent. There were a few ringers in that group. I remember a score of 180 something going down…. It was good times and a lot of laughs at the alley. After 3 games we had our finalists:
Thomas Lamprecht 1st place
Paul Forand 2nd place
Pierce Miller 3rd place
Robert Carmichael 4th place
Dane Jefferies 5th place
We had a little battle of the pros between Benny B and Cody T and it was Cody Thompson that rose to the occasion and took 40 cool ones from my pocket for his surf/bowling skills.
Shred For Cred heads to Huntington Beach August 17th!
The Reef surf movie theme, “The Path of the Modern Gypsy”, was taken from Benny Bourgeois’s life. He spends almost all his time traveling to exotic surf location around the world. I guess if he had to pick a place he calls home it would be in Encinitas CA but he’s only there about 4 month of the year. Most of the die-hard surf fans know Benny B is from Wilmington North Carolina and his family owns and runs the Sweetwater Surf Shop. Ben flew back to NC to surf in the Oakley Surf Shop Team Challenge for the Sweetwater team on April 14th. Being a seasoned competitor and a gifted surfer Benny B helped his Sweetwater team win the Mid-Atlantic region of the Oakley Surf Shop Team Challenge. Ths was their 2nd year in row to win this title. In September they will be competing for the National Championships at Huntington Pier.
Well it’s almost over and the US team has been eliminated. Nevertheless Ben Bourgois and Mike Losness were surfing well throughout the event and it was a lot of fun for them.
