SURFERS of all ages, styles and experience will head to the beach this weekend for the 30th annual Surf Toyota Malfunction Surf Contest, 3 to 5 May – mobile on the lower Gold Coast.
Contest director Sally Paxton, one of just two surfers (along with Burleigh surfer Peter Stickland) to take part in every event since its inception, said the iconic event was now the longest-running longboard surfing event in Queensland – and still just a lot of fun.
“It’s more of a family-based kind of casual competition – it’s a bit more of a spiritual contest rather than a competitive thing,” she said.
“It’s the longest running longboard comp – it would have to be in Queensland – I think Byron Bay beat us by two years to be the longest running event in Australia.
“I think it survives because it grew from the grassroots of surfing – from the people who were here at the time riding longboards. It’s about a love of surfing not about trophy hunting.”
Sally said this year the Gold Coast Malibu Club, which runs the event, had brought in a new format aimed at making the event even more fun for surfers of all skill levels and experience.
“We’ve kept it real cheap and if you surf once and finish fourth you get knocked out and you don’t surf again. What we are doing now is only $60 and everyone surfs three times. So if you’ve had three crappy surfs you’ve still surfed three times.
“It’s just taken on points – there’s no final as such, it’s just a points system. Everyone surfs three times and then they’re hanging around – it makes it more social.
“We are mobile between Rainbow and North Bilinga. Like if the surf is really good and this is crowded we’re going to go somewhere else.”
The Mal features everyone from juniors to over-sixties with the 126 competitor coming from all around Australia to experience those famous lower Gold Coast waves.
“But doing this format it cuts down on competitors but everyone is happy,” Sally said.
“We are looking at people walking away going ‘how good was that’ I’m coming next year, rather than them going ‘it was alright but I only got one surf and I probably should have gone home yesterday’.
“We want it so everyone is having a chat. I’m still surfing in surf comps because I love the camaraderie of it, the people you catch up that you don’t see all the time. It’s good catching up with old mates.”
Surfing will start at 8am each day with surfers meeting at Greenmount Car park at 6.30am each morning and decide where we are going on the day.
“We’ll just go to where the best surf is on the day – away from the crowds,” Sally said.
Entries will be taken on the Friday morning while there will be a meet and greet tonight at Surf World, Currumbin, at 6.30pm and you can sign on then.
“Get in early but there are still some spots left,” she said.
