Grand Opening Contest for Wilmington, North Carolina Store. April 2007

17th Street Surf Shop added it's largest store to the company in April of 2007, an 8,000 square foot store complete with state of the art TV's for webcasting events from around the world as well as a 12 seat movie theater for viewing the latest surf and skate DVD's. To celebrate the Grand Opening of the new shop 17th Street hosted a Grand Opening weekend giving away over $5000 in prizes to lucky customers, but the grand prize of them all was a trip to the North Shore of Hawaii to witness the Billabong Pipe Masters! To win the trip all you had to do was come in and pick the winner of the Billabong Pro Teahupoo that took place in May. Thousands entered the contest for a chance at this once in a lifetime prize. In the Billabong Pro it was Damien Hobgood pulling off a last second victory from Mick Fanning. After pulling all the people who picked Damien we pulled one winner from a hat, Rashad Arram was the winner!

17th Street's Marketing Director Ryan Kingsbury went to Hawaii to show the lucky winners around and here is a little recap of their stay:

December 10th 2007- Rashad and his wife head to Hawaii for a 5 night stay at the beautiful Turtle Bay Resort! And the chance to see the Billabong Pipe Masters!

December 11th 2007- The first day on the North Shore and the contest is set to run! A full day as all the top surfers in the world are in the water today. Rashad visits the Billabong house located at Off The Wall for a lunch break.

December 12th 2007- The contest is off today so the crew does a little site seeing around the North Shore and gets in a surf session at Rocky Point.

December 13th 2007- The contest is back on for round 2 as 16 of Hawaiis best Pipeline surfers do battle against the WCT surfers.

December 14th 2007- The contest is on again for round 3, conditions for the famed Pipeline are a little disappointing but never the less the surfing by the pros is always amazing to watch! That night Rashad and his wife are treated to one of the coolest parties of the winter on the North Shore. (See the 17th Street TV page for a small clip)

December 15th 2007- Contest is off so some more sight seeing and then it's off to the airport for the overnight flight back home.

Check out photos of Rashads trip to the Pipe Masters! As well the beautiful scenery of the North Shore!

Mouse over the images for details.