Huntington Beach Loses Surf Event

By JOHN WEYLER

Dec. 6, 2000 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

After three 12-hour days of contentious meetings, the Assn. of Surfing Professionals executive board finally hammered out a 2001 World Championship schedule that features a number of compromises and only one apparent loser.

Surf City won’t host the popular back-to-back surfing competitions as it did last summer. Permit-holder Ian Cairns, vice president of events for Irvine-based Bluetorch, was given a window during which to host a WCT event and the Panasonic Shockwave U.S. Open of Surfing--a six-star World Qualifying Series event--in Huntington Beach, but there’s not enough time to do both.

Cairns, who staged the Bluetorch Pro WCT event and the U.S. Open that drew tens of thousands over a two-week period last summer, was given a July 28-Aug. 5 time slot for the U.S. Open or an Aug. 1-5 slot for the Bluetorch Pro.

Cairns lobbied for a later date for the WCT contest, but ASP rules state that a WQS event with a rating of four or more stars cannot conflict with a WCT event and the board was committed to a successful early-August WQS event in France.

The board gave Cairns until Dec. 21 to confer with sponsors and make a final decision. Cairns could not be reached for comment.

In the past, he has said that sponsors would be willing to settle for the same two weeks of exposure by stretching out the U.S. Open, which has more than 700 competitors, and continuing the hugely popular Beach Games, which feature skateboarding, inline skating and BMX competition running concurrently with the surfing.

That would leave Trestles, an event that originally had been slated as the tour finale in a 2001 schedule that was released by the ASP in September, as the lone California stop on the WCT tour.

Trestles is now the fourth-to-last event, set for Sept. 10-15 at the famed break just south of the Orange County line.

One board member said ASP CEO/president Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew--the swing vote on the 11-man executive board--was often caught in the middle of screaming matches between the blocs of five pro surfers and five event sponsor representatives.

The surfers wanted a four-month off-season that would have meant no stops in Hawaii. Event representatives were firm in their stance that the tour should end on Oahu’s North Shore.

The compromised schedule--which will include either nine or 10 events, depending on the fate of the Huntington Beach contest--includes both a Hawaiian finale and a lengthy off-season for the pros.

Instead of ending at the Banzai Pipeline, as has been the case for most of the past 30 years, the Rip Curl Cup at Sunset Beach, a six-star WQS event currently under way, will conclude the 2001 WCT tour, running Nov. 26-Dec. 7.

“It all started out very confrontational, a very negative situation,” said Randy Rarick, director of the Triple Crown, which includes the Rip Curl Cup and the Mountain Dew Pipeline Masters, “but it was a positive step forward in the end for just about everybody but Ian.

“It was really ugly for a while, but now we’ve got a great spot to crown a champion, the surfers can be home for Christmas and they get January, February and March off.”

The 2001 Pipeline Masters, celebrating its 30th anniversary beginning Friday, will be a specialty event next year featuring the winners of the 2001 WCT events, a number of other highly ranked WCT competitors and a collection of locals who are regarded by many as the real Pipeline masters.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Surf Schedule

2001 Assn. of Surfing Professionals

World Championship Tour Schedule

* April 10-22: Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, Australia

* May 8-19: Gotcha Pro at Teahupoo, Tahiti

* May 26-June 7: Quiksilver Pro at Grajagan, Java

* June 27-July 5: Rio Surf International at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

* July 17-27: Billabong Pro at Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa

* *Aug. 1-5: Bluetorch Pro at Huntington Beach

* Sept. 10-15: Billabong Pro at Trestles

* Sept. 17-25: Figueira Pro at Figueira da Foz, Portugal