WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIG:Machado wins 3rd Open title

Finally, some surf for the finals of the $185,000 Honda U.S. Open of Surfing at Huntington Pier last weekend. The tropical swell, compli- ments of a hurricane that went through the swell window the middle of last week, gave us some 3- to 6-foot plus, peaky lines. The U.S. Open final saw more than 100,000 spectators lining the pier, on the sand and filling up the grandstand seats. It was packed — possibly the largest crowd ever.

After starting out with more than 500 surfers, it was Cardiff’s two-time U.S. Open winner, big crowd favorite Rob Machado and the big boy from Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Roy Powers, in the 30-minute final.

Machado got on the scoreboard with some moderate waves and then raised the ante with a solid series of lip bashes on one wave, outside, throwing water, connecting inside and finishing off with some more rad turns, earning a 7.0 score to take the lead. The Mob looked like he had it wrapped, then Powers found a set left by the pier, threw a big floater and slashed a couple of turns to earn a 7.5 score, and the battle was on. Machado answered back on another wave, where he pulled a series of speed snaps off the top, reformed to the inside and finished the wave off with a 360 reverse — to the cheers of the thousands on the beach to take the lead for good. Powers tried to answer back a few times but never found the wave he wanted, and Rob held priority at the end to ice a third Open Title. Machado won $15,000 dollars and a new Aqua Trax jet ski for his big weekend effort.

In the Juniors final, it was a see-saw battle between the Aussie Ben Dunn and Hawaiian Tory Meister, and both were going off. Meister had a left where he did three straight-up lip bashes and was leading through the halfway point. Then Dunn got a set right, threw a super big slash, worked it in and received a 9.0 score to take the lead. Right in the last 30 seconds, Meister got another wave, tore it apart and did a 360 reverse in the shallows that looked like it could be the winner. But it gave them a tie, and on the count back Big Bad Ben Dunn took the win in the closest final ever: one-tenth of a point. In the long-boarding, in this order, three-time world champ Colin McPhillips was ripping, Capistrano’s Taylor Jensen was surfing well and nine-time Open winner Joel Tudor was styling, but the man of the hour was local Dodger Kremel. Dodger caught the biggest waves, did a soul arch hanging 10 on a steep bowl section and blasted a huge weightless lipper, switched it around inside doing a fin first and pulled the biggest score — a 9.83 to combo the field, and win. Unbelievable. Of course, he was carried up the beach by all his friends.

In the women’s final on Saturday, it was former world champ, Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich, who found the right waves and continually knocked off the big maneuvers to post a solid win over hot up-and-coming Australian Jessi Miley-Dyer to show that women’s surfing has stepped way up.

And in the junior women’s final, France’s Lee Ann Curren, daughter of legendary three-time world champ Tom Curren, was the victor with some hot moves over the other gals in a close one. South Africa’s Rosanne Hodge placed second, Newport Beach’s Erica Hosseini was third and Orange County’s Courtney Conlogue was fourth as all the gals were ripping.

Ventura’s Dane Reynolds won the wild card slot into the championship tour event at Trestles with some big airs. And Oxnard’s Timmy Curran won the Life Rolls On Expression Session in honor of Jessie Billauer who caught some nice ones, too, for spinal cord research.

And that ends 10 days of fun in the sun on the beach, with fun surf through pretty much all of the event. Can’t wait till next year.

Hoped ya liked Figgy, Jimmy and Simmons doing the play-by-play, scores, filler, color, music and jokes. See ya!