Some serious standings

WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN FIG

The $60,000 Assn. of Surfing Professionals three-star Fosters Cup was

held last week down at Lower Trestles in San Clemente with some of

the nation’s best surfers on hand. The surf was pretty good at times

with the combination of southwest and west swells that hit the

premier Southern California point break. The No. 1 seeded surfer in

the contest, Shane Beschen, a former world championship tour star and

winner of the event in ‘92, ’93 and ‘96, was again in top form.

Beschen took the win, with a couple radical slashes and pulled a nice

tail sliding maneuver in the final to win the $7,000 first-place

prize. But, needed even more than the prize money, were the valuable

World Qualifying Series points where he’s already made a three finals

this year and is up there in the current standings. After the win

Beschen said he was fired up to requalify and get back on the

championship tour with all the other elite surfers.

Placing second was hot Hawaiian surfer Joel Centeio who had some

great heats on the way to the final and has had some great showings

in the amateur National Scholastic Surfing Assn. Nationals there in

the past years.

Another Hawaiian, with lots of potential was Roy Powers who

finished third and was ripping, too. Rounding out the top four places

was local San Clemente surfer Chris Ward who’s been busting big-time

and looks to have a shot at making the Championship Tour also, coming

up just short last season. Huntington’s new guard Timmy Reyes put on

quite a show and has the talent to make the big show too. Look for

more big results from him this year. He finished equal fifth with

another shredder Nathan Yeomans. And equal seventh were former

championship tour surfers Hawaiian Kaipo Jaquias, who’s got one of

the most vertical back side assaults, and the East Coast’s Ben

Bourgeois.

In the women’s division, Australian Serena Brooke, who’s been

runner-up in the world standings a few times, came in first followed

by Holly Beck from Palos Verdes, pulling her best result thus far in

her pro career. Hawaiian Melanie Bartels was third and Lauren Sweeney

of Carlsbad was fourth.

Over in Australia last week they concluded the ASP’s WCT event,

the $250,000 Rip Curl Cup. They moved the contest from Bells Beach to

Johanna for the final days of competition for some better surf. Last

year’s reigning world champ, Andy Irons, who won the event in 2001

also, just couldn’t be stopped. Irons opened up with a 9.8 ride, that

featured some mean carves, floaters, a layback snap and a clean

barrel on the inside -- surfed to an almost perfect score. Aussie

Joel Parkinson, who finished runner-up in the world standings last

year to Irons, never gave up, taking the lead half way through final

with two good ones and buckling a board. Parkinson had to ride a

different surfboard for the rest of the final, but came up short and

placed second. Irons won $30,000 and it also put him back in first

place in the overall standings.

On another note, Irons had lost his passport and was lucky that

the start of the surf contest was delayed, due to small surf, cause

he did arrive late for the event. The US’s C.J. Hobgood, world champ

in 2001, was equal third along with the 2002 rookie of the year

Aussie Mick Fanning.

That’s it for now see ya.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a seven-time West Coast champion, has

announced the U.S. Open of Surfing the last nine years and has been

the KROQ-FM surfologist for the last 17 years, doing morning surf

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

(714) 536-1058.