So Who Won Stab Highway? - Stab Mag

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Your series winners, Team Jaleesa - Wade Goodall, Noa Deane, Jaleesa Vincent and Shaun Manners (live on Facetime from Western Australia). The stars of a forthcoming Kai-Neville surf film.

So Who Won Stab Highway?

Breaking down the facts and figures from our first cohort.

Words by Ethan Davis
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Stab Highway presented by Monster Energy is a wrap!

After 10 days, 30 challenges and way too many beers, our 16 surfers let out a sigh of relief at Austinmer Pub and were finally permitted to run for the hills and get a much-needed uninterrupted night’s sleep. Of course, a handful of them, on their own volition, partied till the early hours of the morning. 

No rest for the wicked.

This was the first Stab Highway we have ever produced, and the spirit that the surfers brought and maintained for 10 turbulent days had us swelling with pride. From Harry Bryant’s feary Sydney Harbour Bridge swim, to Holly Wawn’s turbo hill bomb, and Dion Agius getting his dome inked with an Ozzy Wright, there were moments that exceeded our wildest expectations. 

No, we did not expect to see Ozzy Wright head tats. Photo by John Respondek

Without further ado, let’s break down some of the facts and figures from the inaugural series.

Series winners – Team Jaleesa

  1. Team Jaleesa – 95 points
  2. Team Holly – 84 points
  3. Team Pacha – 66 points
  4. Team Macy – 52 points
Team Jaleesa’s win margin can be attributed to their ‘go hard or go home’ mentality. They did not go home.

Team Jaleesa (AKA Team RAGE) Jaleesa Vincent, Shaun Manners, Noa Deane, and Wade Goodall ended up winning the series by a margin of 11 points between their nearest competitors, and put a hefty margin of 33 points between the team in last place. 

Monster Air winner – Coby Perkovich

Coby Perk came into Stab Highway with one intention; win the Monster air. Coby is one of the hardest working freesurfers in Aus. With no major sponsor, Coby’s surfing has always flown under the radar despite being one of the country’s most stylish and technical aerialists. 

Closely contested with submissions from Reef Heazlewood and Noa Deane, Cobs’ monster straighty took the cake, earning himself $10,000 and a spot in a forthcoming Kai-Neville directed surf film.

We are stoked for Coby who, unlike the majority of the field, has a full-time job shaping high-performance boards at his label, SYSTM.101. 

Top 3 highest scoring surfers 

Dakoda crushed it on Stab Highway. Between his pie-diet, steamer-wearing, tandem-surfing, and surf challenges, our youngest surfer, Dakoda racked up the most points of any individual on the trip. Photo by John Respondek
  1. Dakoda Walters (30) 
  2. Wade Goodall (29) 
  3. Shaun Manners (27) 

Win Percentage (top 3 all Team Jaleesa) 

The show up and blow up. Chun strutted into his challenges with swagger and won them all with the exception of the river swim, where he came second to Hazzy B’s incredible Sydney Harbour swim. Photo by John Respondek
  1. Shaun Manners won 6/7 individual challenges he entered ~86% win rate 
  2. Noa Deane won 4/5 individual challenges he entered – 80% win rate 
  3. Wade Goodall 4/9 individual challenges he entered – 44% win rate 

Most entries by a surfer 

“I am never doing this trip again. I can’t believe that at 34 I did this,” Wade Goodall was the MVP of the surf- and performance-based challenges. Despite having a decade on many of the other surfers in the group, Wade’s performances proved age is just a state of mind.
  1. Wade and Dakoda (9 challenges each) 
  2. Coby and Chippa (8 challenges each) 
  3. Shaun Manners (7 challenges each)

Thanks for coming, we’ll see you next year.

You can watch episode one here, episode two here, episode three here, episode four here, episode five here, episode six here, episode seven here, and episode eight here

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