www.waxheads.com comp update16 1 09

Catho Classic 09 Story Mark Radford (Rady) Photos Gary Luke and Joshua Weaver

The 30th annual Catho Classic was held over the weekend Friday January 9 to Sunday January 11 which hosted over 140 surfers in 8 divisions. The 3 day event was blessed with fun, ripable waves up to 1.5m for the duration of the contests. Friday was Grom day and ironically the biggest of the days, and the standard of micro surfing did not disappoint, with groms from 9 to 17 shredding every thing that moved. Saturday and Sunday provided perfect beach days of blazing sunshine and blazing surfing to match and also saw a few upsets in the elimination rounds of the senior divisions. Sunday finals day provided the large crowd some amazing surfing and hig scoring rides, but highlight of the event fittingly saw Lake Munmorah ‘young gun’ Mick Spencer score perfect 10’s from all three Judges and the hoots from the hundreds of spectators and convincingly take out the ‘blue ribbon’ Open Final and the $1000 prize

The results of the 30th annual Catho Classic are as follows.

Boys Under 12 Boys
1 RYAN SLATTERY
2 BEN HUCKER
3 LUKE VADORI
4 CONNER LEE
5 JYE VALAIRE

Boys Under 15 Boys
1 KURTIS HERMAN
2 BILLY DRINKWATER
3 SAM JOHNSTON
4 JORDAN VADORI

Boys Under 18 Boys
1 KURTIS HERMAN
2 JACK SCOLLARD
3 LEE SALARIS
4 LINCON BROWN

MENS OPEN
1 MICHAEL SPENCER
2 TYLER WILLAMS
3 DUNCAN McNICHOL
4 JUSTIN LEE
5 REECE MENZIES
6 MATT SETMOR

MENS OVER 30s
1 JUSTIN LEE
2 TODD BARRY
3 ANDY BRINKWORTH
4 CHRISTIAN McCALL
5 GLEN VALAIRE
6 MATT jEFFERSON

MENS OVER 40's
1 GLEN VALARIE
2 MATT HUCKER
3 GED COOK
4 KEV SLATTERY
5 TONY SALARIS
6 TONY RAE

MENS OVER 45's
1 TONY RAE
2 GRANT BROOKS
3 GED COOK
4 TONY SALARIS
5 STEVE PRIOR
6 MICK CARR

MENS OVER 50's
1 GLEN SHARROCK
2JIM DAVIES
3 DAVE EVANS
4 DALE BRADLEY
5 MICK CARR

There were 6 other awards starting with :

1) The Worst Wipe-Out going to Mark Radford in the Mens Over 50s after paddling ‘straight over the falls’ on a set wave on the Saturday.

2) Best Cut-back Open & Over 30 surfer Brad Marriott

3) Best Re-Entry Open surfer Lincoln Robards (2nd year running !)

4) Best Tube Under 18 surfer Josh Radford (2nd year running !)

5) John Stewart Memorial Highest Scoring Wave going to the Open champion Mick Spencer for his perfect 10 scored in Sundays’ Open Final.

6) Best Overall Manoeuvre went to Terry Rouse in Saturdays 2nd heat of the Over 50s for a perfectly executed bottom turn/cut-back ‘under the lip’ combination earning the nod off all the judges

And once again the sponsors ‘came to the party in droves’. Along with major sponsors 3P Surfboards and the Boardroom, there was Caves Beach Hotel, Swansea RSL, Catho Bowlo, 3 surfshops Swansea Surf, Belmont’s Oceanfire and Newcastle’s Pacific Dreams, a coal mine Lake Coal, Saddingtons, Mycorp Heavy Earthmoving, Insulation Industries, Swansea’s Civic Video and Dominoes Pizza, Hunter Roof Sales, Summer Breeze Surf Wax, Ocean and Earth, O’Neill, Billabong, Rip Curl, Shoot To Thrill Photographics, Kennards Events Hire, SMD Surfboards, Al Johns Surfboards, Gwandalan Quality Meats, Chapmans Optometrists of WarnersBay and Big Colour Visual digital graphics.

Also there was a big bunch of Catho Boardriders and other hard working individuals fully committed to putting on a great event come rain, hail or shine! The only rain was Thursday evening after everything was already set up for a 8.00am start on Friday for all the young surfers U/12, U/15 and U/18.

Look out 2010 for the 31st annual !