For the past several years, the Op Newport Classic has technically been a World Qualifying Series event. However, its mere one-star rating, with a meager amount of points and prize money compared to bigger events such as the six-star rated U.S. Open, does little to attract big-name overseas competitors. More often, the event is a fun opportunity for Californian pros to scrimmage in home waters. NSSA surfers get a chance to step up and test themselves in a professional environment with a chance to win bragging rights as well as $2,000. The money is a big carrot for an aspiring amateur surfer, but for seasoned competitors accustomed to big events paying at least twice that, the prize hardly makes this event worth the cost of a plane ticket. Likewise, the 250 points for first place is exactly half the amount a seeded competitor would earn merely entering an event like the U.S. Open. So, when this year’s heat draw included big names like Hawaiian Melanie Bartels and Australia’s Laurina McGrath, it became clear that something unusual was going on.

The WQS exists to test competitive surfers from around the world and decide who is most fit to join the elite in vying for a world title on the World Championship Tour. This year there were 12 WQS events in total, on five different continents. Of the dozen, four were rated only one-star, making them nearly invisible to all but local surfers in that area. The rest were tagged with ratings in the four- to six-star range. A surfer’s point total at the end of this year is the sum of points earned in six events. The star rating corresponds to the number of points offered; therefore, looking at the schedule, most surfers will place the most priority on attending the six-star events first, followed by five, then four, while also factoring in the location and the price of a plane ticket to that part of the world. These events are referred to as “counting events.” Most surfers intent on qualifying will give themselves as many opportunities as possible to earn points and attend every counting event, knowing that at the end of the year only their best six results will matter.

Melanie Bartels, however, is not most surfers. She surfs with a combination of power and flair that is unmatched by any of her peers. Even with a solid crop of young, flashy surfers like Brazilian Sylvana Lima and the Peruvian Anali Gomez joining the tour, Melanie is one of the most exciting to watch—that is, when she feels like performing. Most of all, Melanie is elusive. She doesn’t hang out with the other competitors, has been known to deny interviews, and even walk up the beach with the nose of her surfboard covering her face in avoidance of cameras. In the water, her performance can fluctuate depending on her mood. Often she will go out and completely dominate a heat. Other times she seems to simply not feel like performing and will take off on a good wave only to dramatically flop off and then never catch another wave the rest of the heat.

Following the U.S. Open and heading into the final two counting events of the season, Melanie had the best record of anyone on tour. She was so far ahead, with two fifths, a first, and a third, that even with only four scores added, all Mel needed to do was show up at the five-star in England and make it through a heat or two in order to absolutely guarantee her spot on the WCT for 2006. To everyone’s surprise, she didn’t go. Her competitors immediately began pondering her motivation: Why wouldn’t she have made it easy on herself? Her team managers reasoned that she wanted to keep it exciting, and with the four-star rated Hello Kitty Boardfest in Huntington Beach still remaining, she really didn’t need to fly all the way over to Europe. They assured themselves that “she knows what she’s doing,” and since she only needed to get third or better in her opening round, it didn’t seem like it would be too difficult to achieve.

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Then again, this is Melanie Bartels, the enigma. Everyone knows she is capable, but her performance is never guaranteed. She showed up in Huntington with a cast on her wrist from a very recent skateboarding injury. In her first heat, it was obvious that her head just wasn’t in the right place. She took off on a wave with high scoring potential, rode it passively halfway and then pulled off, never to catch another the rest of the heat. If she had only completed that wave, it would have been enough to earn her third place and put her into requalifying position. Without that score or any other, she seemed to choose to stay in fourth, and it seemed that her hopes of making the 2006 WCT would be denied.

Enter the Op Newport Classic. Since Mel so far only had five scores to count compared to everyone else’s six, any more points that she could earn would go into her total. Of course, being a one-star, the Classic didn’t offer too many. Anyone who did the math would realize that Mel would have to win or get second in order to earn enough points to move up two spots in the ratings and back into qualifying position. The surfer currently holding that spot, Laurina McGrath, did the math, and while she already had six counting scores and there was no way she could increase her total points, it was no coincidence that she chose to fly over from Australia one week earlier than she would have for the WCT Malibu event to compete at Newport. It was natural that she would want to try to protect her hard-fought WQS placing, and one more solid surfer in the event would only make it that much more difficult for Melanie.

The final jerseys were handed out to NSSA standout Darlene Connolly, Diana Mattison, who was ending a long hiatus from competition, Californian WQS pro Kyla Langen, and of course Melanie Bartels. Whether or not Melanie knew how she needed to place was unclear; however, she seemed determined to finish on top. Most of the way through the heat, every other competitor needed more than a perfect 10 to reach her. Kyla used up almost all of her allotted waves to try and stop Melanie. She finally found a wave with shape to score a 7, but would finish in second place. Similarly, Diana inched away at the deficit but would be relegated to third. Darlene must have been stoked to reach the final amongst such experienced competitors, but had to settle for a respectable fourth place.

When the awards were handed out and the announcer asked Melanie if this meant she would now requalify, she simply said, “I don’t know.” Pressed to comment further, all she would give was a simple, “Yeah, I’m stoked.” Whether she knew it and just wanted to downplay the situation or not, Melanie earned the 250 points she needed to leapfrog back into qualifying position on the WQS and turn a usually benign one-star event into one of the most important of the year.