cramikfest 9 – Deebo Becomes 1st Three Time cramik Champ!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Are you biased? Can you you really be totally unbiased?  Can you put your personal feelings aside and see things for what they are and not what you want them to be? I think you can, if you try hard enough, and watching my fellow judges at cramikfest, I know it’s possible for those guys.  Truly, at cramikfest, the judges are totally about doing what’s right by what they saw, not by what they wanted.  Hell, I admit it, I’ve wanted Deebo to win so many cramikfests.  He’s got the skills to win every time, he tirelessly shares his knowledge of how Bodega is breaking and has set us up with a great spot that has produced great cramikfests year after year.  He’s a good dude too.  He should win, but skimming is tough, & cramikfest can be tougher.  Relentless, long heats, not to mention dangerous megaheats and unavoidable inebriation to one extent or another.

Going into last Saturday’s cramikfest, Thomas “2 Time” Corwin was the only two-time cramik champ, having won #1 and #3. That had a good chance of changing as the finals featured 4 previous champs; Square (#5), Thomas (1,3), reigning champ Quiet Wyatt (8), Deebo (2 & wait, hold on a second, Holy COW, Deebo won cramikfest #6 as well!!!)  What the hell???  Jeez my brain is gone, I seriously just found that while looking at the cramikfest pages!  How did this get past everyone, I was yelling 2-time (in reference to Thomas) the whole day!  Humble Deebo never even said a word.  Wow, my apologies.

Also in the final was Sam, who is due to win one of these any minute now.  But I digress.  How were the conditions?  Pretty good. The waves weren’t great, peak tide was probably the best at the start of the first megaheat of the Am Division.   But, not close to epic.  The waves weren’t pushing all that much, but the weather was sick which more than made up for it. 3 Ball Buttnutt always does a great job picking the event date and this year was no exception, even when he had to do it twice.

The first heat was the Champions megaheat which was a lot of fun.  But, the Am megaheat was on fire!  The best waves all day came through during that heat and everyone was going after it.  Of course, Tommer trophies were on the line and that always starts a frenzy.

When it was all said and done, Luke dominated the final in the Ams, taking down Mark, local fav Kevin, and early megaheat standout Andres.  The Champions Division was stricken with some flat wave conditions after 20 minutes and was put on hiatus for 30 minutes or so while the Am final was run.  Then they had to get back in and skim another, who knows, 30 or 40 minutes as it just started to blow out at the end of the heat and the tide started to suck out.  The conditions weren’t ideal but everybody charged.  Wyatt was making a strong push to be the only back to back cramik champ and almost pulled it off, but Deebo couldn’t be stopped.  Whether it was backside urls, frontside laybacks, or a strong aerial attack, Deebo was on point all day and provided many a highlight on his way to gaining his new nickname, 3-Time!  Sam and Square rounded out the top with strong showings as well.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and making cramik the fun, special event that it is.  Look forward to seeing you all when the cramik cup starts!  The biggest thanks go out to 57 for the sick trophies, always the highlight of the event!

Here’s some pics, in order by time, taken by legendary cramik photog Craig Kay and the before posted vid from Selva at the bottom:

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[youtube]http://youtu.be/GuhENVQRwRg[/youtube]