Wow what a great day to have the Hawaii State Slalom Championships.  Kanaha was all time as far as a perfect day for slalom, with winds slightly on shore and blowing from about 20-30 all day it was perfectly filled in around the whole course.  After a bit of a sub par performance in the last County Race I was back and ready to reclaim both the 40-49 and the Pro titles.

The morning was the age groups and I was racing on my 6.6 TR9 and my 59cm wide JP Slalom board and a 35cm Tectonics T43.  This proved to be the perfect set up for the morning four heats as I finished with four bullets.  There were some very good battles with Phil McGain and Kevin Ozee off the line and to the first mark but after that I put the pedal down and went for broke.  This was a  great warm up for the afternoon which would certainly be tougher in the Pros with some of the younger guys coming up to battle.

After a leisurely lunch break the wind had increased just slightly so I made a fin adjustment going down just 1cm on my T43 I stayed with the same TR9 and my same JP.  In the last heat of the morning races I had discovered that the boat end of the line was very favored so I decided to try this again in the first heat of the Pro's and it paid of big as I was clear ahead at the first mark and didn't let up to take first.  I played the same tactic in the next two races and surprisingly no one else in the fleet seemed to notice and I was again clear at the first mark racking up two more bullets.  By the fourth and final heat though most of the guys had came up to try to take advantage of the boat and Dan Ellis who was giving me the most trouble nailed it and was first to the first mark followed by Peter Slate.  But both of them were battling each other so hard that they had a lot of speed into their turns which caused them to go wide and I was able to gybe inside both of them and beat them to the second mark for my eighth bullet of the day.

In the end it was a good day for me and for Maui Sails as Phil and Kevin finished 2nd and 3rd in our age and Phil finished 4th in the pro's.  In the 50-59 Mike Yasik took the State title and Sam Bockius was 3rd.  60 and over Todd MacFarlane won to give Maui Sails three of four state titles in the age groups and a fourth for Tamara Bockius in the women.  So all in all a good performance for team Maui Sails!!!

Now it is off to Turkey for the third PWA event of the season, these last couple of Maui Race Series races were great tune up and great practice!!  Once again a big thanks to everyone who puts their time and effort into making this happen, all the volunteers deserve a big pat on the back especially Kim Ball from Hi-Tech great to see him still making this happen!! 

Aloha to all and a huge MAHALO!!!!
Micah Buzianis