Less Than 5 2017 – Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner

By billmccaffray • 7 years ago • Wakeboard

The annual Alliance Less than Five event presented by MasterCraft with support from Elysian Brewing went down in Orlando last Tuesday, just ahead of Irma and Surf Expo slamming into Orlando. Fortunately the 20 minute free ride contest wrapped up in less than a day so that the locals could get home and board up their houses ahead of Irma coming to town. As if Less Than 5 and category 4 hurricanes weren’t enough, the team from MasterCraft brought down the new 2018 Xstar as a perfect release of the new boat. All of the riders were stoked to have the opportunity to ride the new and greatly improved Xstar and from all riders, photos and seeing it first hand, it more than lived up to the hype. Add a post party with pizza and beers, and Less Than 5 was as epic as ever.

West Coasters made a solid impact on both rider and fan voting again this year, with the current leader of the West Side movement, Trever Maur taking home first place from both panels of judges. In the rider vote, young Guenther Oka, who has been on about every podium this year, pulled down the second space with Delta style master Josh Twelker finishing up 3rd. Bob Soven was a close 4th to Twelker in the rider voting and it seems clear from the comments online that everyone very much appreciated his double grabs and his final move, a double grab 3 rewind back 1.

For the fan vote, Twelker bumped Guenther from the 2nd spot and young up and coming Tyler Higham landed in 3rd creating a full Delta sweep of the fan vote. Now some may argue that the riders know better than the fans but it’s hard to argue with what the masses like to see, and apparently thye like to see West Coast style!

Rider Vote
1st – Trever Maur
2nd – Guenther Oka
3rd – Josh Twelker

Fan Vote
1st – Trever Maur
2nd – Josh Twelker
3rd – Tyler Higham

All aboard the new XStar