Kelly Slater © ASP
Get Ready for the ASP World Tour in America
Sep 08 2006 / Los Angeles, CALower Trestles is the Site for the Boost
Lower Trestles is one of the best venues for an event in
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During the 60s, President Richard Nixon made his Western White House on the cliffs above Cottons Point, and when the President was on the beach in his Bermuda shorts with his metal detector, there was a security perimeter that extended for over a mile all around his house.
From that time there is a story that is probably bologna, but still pretty good: “Two kids are surfing Cottons when they save the President from drowning. President Nixon thanks the kids by granting them each one wish. The first kid says: ‘I want you to open Trestles to all surfers and stop the harassment.’ The President says he will see what he can do. The second kid says, ‘I want to be buried in
During the 60s, the friction between surfers and Marines was no laughing matter. One of the best surf spots in
Lower Trestles has been open to the public for decades now, and these days the conflict there is surfer on surfer. Trestles is actually in San Diego County but it is popular with the thousands of surfers who flood out of the Orange County suburbs to get a taste of the nature walk through the wetlands and the surf that breaks from all directions along the cobblestone point created by San Mateo Creek.
As a wave Lower Trestles is one of the best in
Trestles has been a venue for countless amateur and pro events over the last 50 years, but the recent history of Trestles as a pro venue goes back too 2000. Andy Irons won the first Quiksilver Pro in 2000, and Tom Curren won the Quiksilver WQS event there in 2001. Luke Egan won the Boost Mobile Pro Presented by Billabong in 2002, and the event was won by Australians the next two years: Richie Lovett in 2003, and Joel Parkinson just barely beat Slater in an epic final in 2004: “I don’t know what to say,” Parkinson was quoted after the event. “I was waiting for Slater to deliver his fatal blow. I had an eight, as well as a seven, but those are fairly weak scores these days, especially in a final with him. I kept trying to better my position, but couldn’t, and then that wave came for Kelly at the end and I figured, ‘Well, two finals in two contests is alright.’ Slater had a chance with ten seconds remaining, but the wave was just a bit too small and he wasn’t able to get the necessary score, a 6.77, even after pulling a reverse air 360 right in front of the supportive crowd. I used to watch ‘In Black And White’ from the Bud Tour days when Kelly won here, but I guess it’s a different decade...”
Parkinson was right. It is a different decade and the decade he was referring to was the 90s, when Kelly Slater was on the rise with everything to prove. At that time, the Lower Trestles contest was sponsored by Body Glove and part of the Bud Pro Tour of Surfing. The contest was a big deal, as it brought the best surfers in the world to compete against local legends like Christian Fletcher. In 1989, Fletcher prepared for the Body Glove Surf Bout by skating a ramp and playing Skate or Die while listening to speed metal. It worked. As the world watched, the 18-year-old anarchist busted airs going both ways and won $31,725, but a million dollars in credibility: “I don’t look to be a leader,” Christian was quoted, “but I'm not gonna go out and do the same tricks as everyone else. It's like beating a dead horse.” The next year, the Bud Pro Tour scored an absolutely flawless late-summer southern hemisphere swell. Kelly Slater was 18 years old and not yet a legend or a household name. He hadn’t appeared in many surf videos and had a few photos in magazines and he surfed the event wearing a pair of black and white star trunks. Some snickered, but seeing was believing. At that 1990 event, Slater went berserk, unleashing his entire bag of tricks all over the walls of Lower Trestles, beautifully complimenting those beautiful green walls with a fast, high-performance kind of surfing that let everyone know that the times were about to change. Slater won $30,000+ at that event and signed with Quiksilver soon after. His surfing at the Trestles event was packaged in his first video for Quiksilver: Kelly Slater in Black and White. Sixteen years later, it’s still amazing. Sixteen years later, Slater is still a force to be reckoned with at Lowers. In 2005, the Trestles event scored another perfect southern hemisphere swell, and Slater made it to the final, where he beat an upstart Aussie crow named Phil Macdonald by four-tenths of a point. In 2004, Slater lost by less than two points to Joel Parkinson and in 2003, Slater was beat by Taylor Knox in the quarterfinals to set up an all Australian final, in which Richie Lovett beat Taj Burrow. In 2002 Billabong sponsored the event and Australian veteran Luke Egan beat Slater in the semifinals and went on to beat Michael Campbell in the final In 2001, the Quiksilver Pro at Trestles was a WQS event and the four-man final was won by veteran legend Tom Curren. In 2000, the Quiksilver Pro was a WCT event and it was won by Andy Irons. Over the recent history of the Trestles event, the contest has won by big guys, old guys, young guys, light guys and heavy guys. The wave is a perfectly forgiving platform for ultra-high performance hotdog surfing and it has a history of getting swell. The Pacific Ocean has been rumbling pretty good from spring 2006 through the summer , and as of September 6 the prediction was for a rising south swell that will hit a peak of two to four feet on Monday and hopefully hold their for a couple of days. The waiting period for the Boost Mobile Surf Pro Presented by Hurley begins on Tuesday, September 12 and there is a five-day window leading into the weekend. On August 10, the ASP announced that Rob Machado, Jamie O’Brien and Dane Reynolds had been given wildcard seeds into the contest, throwing them into a pot broiling and toiling with 44 of the best competitive surfers in the world. As the Australians say when a rugby fight breaks out, the Trestles contest is going to be “on for young and old.” In the ASP ratings, Kelly Slater leads with 5109 points over Taj Burrow with 4682, Andy Irons with 4365 and Bobby Martinez with 4233. The Boost Mobile Surf Pro is the seventh event in an 11-event year, and barring injury, a year that will most likely come down to a title fight between Slater and Andy Irons. - For event schedule and other information, check out: - Stone Parker
