Kelly Slater, however, takes off in the white-water, lying prone on a 5’3” Cymatic snub-nosed quad. He simultaneously stands up and does a bottom turn and heads towards the lip before the wave closes out. He performs a tight, technical, and theatrical turn. It’s not in the lip and is pulled short so he can ride out in an avalanche of foam. The crowd goes wild, but he needs a big number.
“He got totally juiced,” Willcox tells Tracks. “They gave him the score, and some. That meant I needed a fourth or better at Sunset to qualify. I got fifth.” Similar scenarios would play out in 2020, and in 2022 when he again fell one heat short of CT qualification at Haleiwa.
“The last few years having come so close, I had to think that there was every chance that I wasn’t going to achieve this dream,” Willcox said, matter-of-factly. “I had to think that I was going to need other options, be it
