For all of my summer-lovin’ peeps out there, I hate to be the one to rain on your parade, but summer is quickly coming to an end. And while for most of us that means a return to school, an end to long post-work sessions in the twilight hours, and the dusting off of pee-saturated wetsuits, for Billabong it signifies the end of the three month holding period for the second installment of the Billabong Freewave Challenge.

The Freewave Challenge Mainland is the encore event to the inaugural and highly successful Freewave Challenge Hawaii. Billabong upped the ante on the mainland version by expanding from two to five categories. This means that unless someone goes Jamie O’Brien on us there will be five surfers pulling in a whole lot of cash once the judging for the event is completed, not to mention those who score some loot by finishing up in the 2nd to 5th place positions.

The holding period for the virtual surf competition began with the summer solstice and coincided with an unreal period of swell in the Southern California area. This got the action going early for the Freewave Challenge and Trestles became the scene for a lot of the top entries. Not to be outdone, the East Coast got into the action with the recent threesome of Gustav, Hanna, and Ike. The past few weeks have seen a lot of classic pre-hurricane surf pump out incredible waves. This has resulted in a slew of entries coming in from up and down the Gulf and East Coasts.

Once the official holding period of the Freewave Challenge comes to and end next week, judging of the top rated rides begins. The final rankings will be awarded in mid-October and cash and prizes will be handed out accordingly.

To throw your two cents in on which rides you think are deserving, head on over to FreewaveChallenge.com and take a look at the entries that have come in so far.

How’s this entry for Best Barrel?? Jesse Hines ridiculously deep shack provide by Hurricane Ike at Outer Banks is far and away my top rated clip in that category.

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Tags: Billabong

Posted by Shaun on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 in Surfing.

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