Last weekend was the official start of the NZ 08 season, it kicked off with the Grom/Pro series at Lake Karapiro. It was an awesome event for the younger riders to gain contest experience. I was judging the event and got to see the growing talent of our young riders and the future for NZ wakeboarding is looking good.

The next day were supposed to be the finals but due to strong winds making the water dangerously rough it was cancelled and the results were taken from the previous days heats.

From Karapiro myself and Antz drove over to Tairua for the Pipemasters, NZ’s biggest rail contest. Unfortunately it was extremely rough due to the strong winds, in fact it was so strong that we had kiteboarders riding around while we were hittin the rails.

It was awesome to see that some of our younger rides have really stepped it up on rails.

I ended up having a few average rides in the heats but managed to put it together in the rough conditions in finals.

We headed to the after party at one of the local pub and had a few drinks before they announced the winners.
3rd place was a drew between Travis and Antz and they had an arm wrestle to decide who got the trophy.
2nd was Riley Bathurst (brother of MD Snowboarding Ambassador Tim Bathurst) who has really stepped it up on the rails.
And I managed to take out the top spot, meaning I have now got the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophys on my mantle at home!

Big thanks to Devo for putting on the event.

I am now in OZ for the next 3 weeks, this weekend is the second stop of the APWT. I will check back in with the results.

BRad

Brad Smeele is proudly sponsored by:

Oakley
Mountain Dew
Ronix Wakeboards
Ballistics
Ju$t A Dollar
Skull Candy

www.myspace.com/bradsmeele

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