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U.S. Board Riders Championships Are Coming To Lower Trestles

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The first-ever U.S. Board Riders National Championships presented by Quiksilver and New Earth Project is heading to Lower Trestles April 21-23. The inaugural event is being hosted by the San Clemente Board Riders Club. 

 

Surf clubs will be arriving from up and down both the East and West Coasts and squaring off at the most high-performance wave in the country. An opportunity for generations of surfers to come together, stoke some friendly rivalries, crown a national champion and have a ton of fun, community spirit is the name of the game.
 

“Quiksilver is proud to support the inaugural U.S. Board Riders Championships and support all of these incredible communities around the country. It’s really about bringing people together and celebrating all of these amazing surf towns,” says Quiksilver’s Mike Riley. “And to have a world-class venue like Lower Trestles, it’s a dream come true.”
 

The event will kick off April 21 with the 2022 Wheat Cup Championship presented by Quiksilver and Sport of Kings. It’s named after the late Casey Wheat, a co-founder of the West Coast Board Riders who passed away in May 2020. This qualifying round will feature clubs from Santa Barbara, Northern Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Carlsbad and Oceanside.
 

The winning club from the qualifiers will go on to the championship round on April 22, where they will battle hometown favorite San Clemente, as well as talent-rich squads from Santa Cruz, Huntington

 

Beach and Encinitas, who all won their regional qualifiers during the regular West Coast Board Riders season. The top two teams will advance into the U.S. Board Riders National Championships on April 23. 

 

Already punching their ticket to the big dance from the East Coast is 7 Mile Island Board Riders from New Jersey. Representing Florida will be the Space Coast Board Riders and New Smyrna Beach Board Riders.
 

Competing in seven different age group divisions, from the Under 14s to the over 50s and Open Women’s Division presented by Roxy, the U.S. Board Riders National Championships will see each club composed of 14 surfers (two per division). 
 

Each surfer will be allowed to ride four waves in their heat with their top two waves counting in their scoreline. There will also be one “double whammy” surfer per team per heat, meaning that if said surfer rips one all the way to the cobblestones, they’ll have the opportunity to double the score. 

 

“There’s so much excitement around all of this, the energy couldn’t be better,” says Don Meek, who’s the Board Chair for the organization. “This has always been about uplifting local surf communities and bringing them all together.”
 

And for the seven West Coast Board Riders teams that didn’t make the cut and are not vying for a national title, there’s plenty of reason to smile. They’ll each get their own expression session between heats during the final day on April 23, which means some time in the Lowers lineup with nobody out—not a bad consolation prize.
 

The first West Coast Board Riders event was held back in 2016 and featured a duel between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. Over the years more and more clubs on the West Coast started popping up, and most recently, the organization expanded to the East Coast, thus creating the national entity, U.S. Board Riders. 
 

The U.S. Board Riders National Championships is the culmination of years of hard work by a lot of very dedicated and inspired people. Hopefully Lowers goes off and this is the start of something really good for American surfing. As the organization’s tagline reads, “The future is local.”

 

Watch live from Lowers on April 23m, FUEL TV is available as a free streaming channel on Samsung TV Plus channel 1179 or tune into FuelTV, here, for a live-stream. 

Use the code: SURF50 for a free 7-day trial and 50% off of a one-year subscription.