Wet and Wild with Rockin’ Fig

We’re getting close to the big one.

The $150,000 U.S. Open of Surfing presented by Phillips Electronics is

coming up, from July 27 to Aug. 4 at the Huntington Beach Pier.

The event will host a large field of surfers, with more than 500

contestants from across the globe. America, Australia, Brazil, France,

Japan and South Africa will all have their best surfers on hand.

The action will start each morning at 7 a.m., starting with the first

two days of the pretrials, the regular trials and rounds, with the

quarterfinals, semis and finals coming up on the following weekend.

The men’s and women’s event will be a six-star World Qualifying Series

event worth big bucks and points. There will also be the Billabong-Boost

Mobile junior division, with some of the top up-and-comers, and some of

the top longboarders in the world will also compete, showing you their

fancy footwork.

Some big-time talent is entered: current world champ C.J. Hobgood,

former world champs Kelly Slater and Sunny Garcia, plus other World

Championship Tour shredders like Corey Lopez. Taylor Knox, Pat O’Connell,

WQS stars Tim Curren and Keith Malloy and defending champ Rob Machado.

In the women, former world champ Lisa Andersen is in it, along with

hot Hawaiians Megan Abubo and Rochelle Ballard and defending champ

AustralianPauline Menczer.

First place for the men is $10,000 and $6,000 for the women.

There will be other extreme sports too, including skateboarding in the

one-of-a-kind Phillips expanium Soul Bowl, which reaches back to the

roots of skating. The top BMX bikers will be busting big, vying for a

chunk of the $80,000 being given away in the 3-D, futuristic, 68-feet

long, 46-feet wide, 13-feet deep bowl of bowls.

It’s gonna be a rager with some hot bands scheduled to rock out on the

concert stage, with guest D.J.’s and lots of giveaways. So mark it down

on the calendar, it’s only a couple weeks away.

Coming up this weekend, July 12 to 14, is the Del Taco H.B. Pro Junior

Surf Series, which will be held on the south side of the pier. Lots of

local shredders will be in it. It’ll be kind of a tune up for some

surfers in both events. You can get more info at o7 wwwf7 .o7

H.B.SurfSeries.comf7 .

Contest director Seth Matson expects a high level of surfing for this

one, plus big airs in the Macho air show. So go on down and check it out.

That’s it for now, Fig over and out.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a six-time West Coast champion, has announced the

U.S. Open of Surfing the last eight years and has been the KROQ-FM

(106.7) surfologist for the last 15 years where he’s done morning surf

reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714)

536-1058.