A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXI LOG FEST WITH IZZY PRECIADO

May 27, 2021

If you aren't aware, Bing rider, Israel Preciado is responsible for the premier longboard surfing event, Mexi Log Fest. This surfing event is as unique as Izzy himself! The 2021 Mexi Log Fest begins on June 4th, and will be held at Punta Burros, in Nyarit, Mexico. Always a good time more than a serious contest, the Mexi Log Fest will host some of the best single fin traditional longboarders in the world. We asked Izzy some questions regarding the history of Mexi Log Fest and what to expect this year. Check out his answers and buy a raffle ticket for a chance to win 1 of 10 Bing Surfboards. All proceeds go to help support Mexi Log Fest. Good vibes only!

When did Mexi Log Fest start?

The first Mexi Log Fest was in January 2015.

What is the idea behind Mexi Log Fest, what does it mean to you to bring it to the surf / local communities?

Well, I wanted to be cool... bahaha totally kidding!

After trying to go pro when I was younger and seeing how difficult it was for me to get visas, and sponsors for a kid coming from Mexico, I wanted to give exposure and opportunities to the next generations by hosting an international event in Mexico. I also wanted to give the same equal prize purse to women and men ( my lady’s idea). I guess Mexi Log Fest was the first surf event to do such of thing... haters would say is not true, but hey, it all started south of the border whether they like it or not.

By year, can you list some details of each event?

2015

2015 was held in Sayulita, Nayarit. That was a crazy year, because the sponsors who were supposed to pay for the contest backed out two weeks before it started. So I went home, cleaned up all the 20 boards in my quiver that I have been collecting for the previous 12+ years, and began to sell them around town. Luckily, I sold most of them within a week! A few of them I let them go kind of cheap. That's when I thought of starting the surfboard raffle to raise funds for the event with the last 5 boards I had left in my quiver.

Boards sold:

• 9’6” Bing Elevator Moontail
• 9’6” Bing Cali Pin
• 9’8” Cream (Gato heroi) (this one belonged to my dear friend Eric Obre, who sold it to me very cheap just help me out to raise funds)
• 9’4” Bing Silver Spoon
• 9’8” Von Dutch surfboards or something like, I dont even remember how that board end up in my quiver.

So the cool thing was that 4 of the raffle winners, gave me back my surfboards. They just asked me to reimburse what they paid for the raffle ticket. People are sometimes just surprisingly awesome!!

We had this really fun tag team comp, where 3 local kids would pick two pros from the event or from Sayulita. Each team member was allowed to only catch one wave at the time and run back to the beach and tag one of their team members...a few of the competitors had a few long fun previous nights and they were, to say the least feeling it that morning, but that didn’t stop them from sharing the stoke with the local groms. I remember Tommy Witt and James Parry had to swim out to the point to push some of the kids into the waves because they weren’t strong enough to catch them by themselves....yup, people are pretty awesome!! Most of the night activities (partying) took place in different bars in Sayulita,. I had a huge support from my community. Justin Mauvin from Reunión Island and Nathan Strom from San Diego took the winning.

2016

2016’s event took place once again in my crazy hometown of Sayulita. This year we had many more competitors from all over the world, I was sooo stoked! We had people from the UK, Brasil, Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Japan, Canada and Taiwan. I also changed the format of competition which I have continued to use since then.

4 person heat

Each surfer will surf in (3) 20 minutes heats, where the top 2 waves of each heat will be scored, along with the top wave of all three heats being added to the overall score. Top 16 women's and top 16 men's scorers will advance to the quarterfinals.

For Quaterfinals (R2) the top 16 of each division will surf 1, 25 minute heat where the top 2 waves of each heat will be scored. Top 8 men’s and women’s scorers will advance to the semifinals.

Semifinals (R3) and Finals:

Surfers scores are the total of their two highest-scoring waves. I always thought that the standard one heat elimination format was ridiculous. You spend a lot of money to go to a competition, then you lose in your first heat and your out. By giving 3 opportunities to surf before any eliminations, competitors have less pressure to perform, less aggro attitude in and out of the water, overall it gives them more freedom and more of a free surf session feel to it. This gives the event a more friendly, laid back vibe. For the first few days of the competition, there are no winners or losers, just a bunch of friends sharing warm perfect waves. I also hired international judges for the first time. Mostly friends whose style and aesthetic I admired.

I didn’t really care whether or not they were certified judges, I was more looking for people who shared similar ideas of what beautiful longboarding should look like. Everything was looking amazing for the 2016 Mexi Log Fest, but there was little detail missing. I didn’t have any sponsors to pay for the event. I started to reach out to friends who I thought could help me to find surf brands or companies to sponsor the event. Yes, there were a lot of brands interested, but they wanted all the credits and give the less possible funds. I reached out to Margaret & Matt Calvani to see if they wanted to help me with the surfboard raffle. They jumped onboard right away. We sold 100 tickets for $100 USD each and raffled off 5 brand new beautiful Bing Surfboards. The surfboards raffle pretty much help me to pay for half of the cost of the event!! Aside from Bing Surfboards support, my friend Kelly Morris, Jimmy Chin and Pina donated funds for that year’s event. We had the same activities as the previous year, tag team competition, lots of dancing, I also heard rumors there was a lot of partying😂. Soleil Errico and Andy Nieblas were the champs of the 2016’s event. That guy Andy is sooo freaking good!

For more info about Mexi Log Fest 2016, click here.

2017

2017 was the year when the event got even more popular. I moved the event to the long perfect left wave of La Saladita, Guerrero, MX. I had this enormous support and help of my dear friends Tara Medina, her husband Andres Saavedra and their business partner Rascha Jelks (LOOT) to make the event happen. Obviously we had the “blessing” from Lourdes Valencia & her family, along with the permit of the local surfers. Brands started to be super interested to sponsor the event, but once again they didn’t really want to give much funds. Sometime around December 2016, I got an Instagram message from Joel Tudor.. “give me a call, Vans wants to run the Duct Tape Invitational during your event”. I was like holy shit, Joel Tudor + Vans + Duct Tape = they want to piggyback on my event. Well, I will piggyback on their brand exposure 😂 We ran both events super easy, back then Duct Tape only had one division and 99% of their competitors were already in my event so it was a win win situation for both. Plus, VANS & Duct Tape organizers figured that out.

Perhaps it was good idea to also run a ladies division and give them equal price purse (yup, you are welcome JT & Vans) We had flawless waves the whole time, the parties went off the charts (thanks to the LOOT team). It was amazing, a freaking melting pot of really good vibes from all over the world! That year i had an amazing judging panel..Kassia Meador, Cat Slansky, Jose de Anda, Rogelio Ramos, Mike Stidham, Vince Felix (head judge) Austin Sonnier, Hector González. We had Mike Lay, Matt Chjonacky, Leah Dawson, Kalle Carranza helping us commenting the event.

The finals days for both events came and my childhood hero, Mr. CJ Nelson won both events. It wasn’t that easy for him to win... in both finals he was against Ryan Burch. Mannn Ryan is sooo good like seriously that guys is a wizard, but the magic was on the side of og Ceej on that day. As for the ladies division, Kaitlin Maguire was crowned winner, logging is super cool rides, but when a lady has that talent to make it look easy, smooth and still powerful... ain’t nothing in surfing more beautiful to witness. Did I mention we partied a lot?

For more info about Mexi Log Fest 2017, click here.

2018 & 2019

Howler Brothers is a really awesome clothing company based in Austin, Texas. They started sponsoring me in 2017 (thanks to Kameron Brown) and they decided to also sponsor Mexi Log Fest for 2018 & 2019 (they are also the main sponsors for 2021’s event)

Yes, we had amazing waves!

yes, we danced like crazy!

yes, we surfed sooo much!

Oh, and in 2018 we had “Wingnut“ donate his time to commentating during the whole event. What a legend, and speaking of legends in 2019 we had Jimmy Gamboa as our head judge. Talking about making your dreams come true... if someone had told me when I was grom, that I was going to be running Joel Tudor’s event, have Wingnut commentating in my event, Jimmy Gamboa, Kassia Meador, Vince Felix, Dane Perlee, Brendan White, Kristy Murphy, July Cox as judges, Ceej winning one of my competitions, and I would be running one of the largest most prestigious longboard events in the world...I would have said...you are fucking high!

Ok, so enough of talking about my nerd dreams. In 2018 young Kellis Kaleeoppa I think she was like 14 or 15 years old back then, she was surfing sooo amazing and won the whole event ( I heard rumors that she wasn’t even surfing at her 100%) Have you noticed how the Brazilians are getting soo good at logging!!? I mean Jesus!! They are already really good at soccer, can they just give us a break in surfing! Augusto Olinto a young talented surfer from the favelas of Brasil, he didn’t only win the event, he schooled all of us with his performance.

For more info about Mexi Log Fest 2018, click here.

2019

The revenge of the Hawaiians! This crazy kid Kaniela Stewart took the win, but a lot people think he won the final very easily. Not true. In second place was Noah Shimabukuro who lost against Kaniela for aprox 0.23 points. For the ladies finals, we had my dear friend Chloe Calmon from Brasil, Honolua Blomfield, Kellis Kaleeoppa and Kassia Meador. I remember Honolua coming to me and telling me she had to leave early to catch her flight to Bali and she wasn’t going to be able to be there for the finals. She ended up taking the risk to miss her flight and stayed for the finals. During 2019’s final, we had waves way over head. It was really cool to watch the ladies surfing such a strong swell. Chloe surfed amazing, as well as the rest of the ladies in the final, but Hono was the one who flew to Bali with a $6000 USD check for winning it.

For more info about Mexi Log Fest 2019, click here.

Do you have a heat sheet for each event?

Im sure I have it somewhere bahaha ( )

How has COVID-19 been a thorn regarding travel and holding an event in 2020 / 2021?

I prefer not giving my opinion regarding this matter.

What can we look forward to in 2021?

It is going to be one amazing event, full of amazing vibes, lots of surfing, dancing, people smiling, just people being people 😂😅

Designed by Izzy

For more info about Mexi Log Fest 2021, click here.

What does Bing Surfboards' relationship with Mexi Log Fest mean to you?

Mexi Log Fest couldn’t be possible without the great support from the Bing Surfboards family and team members.

ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A BING SURFBOARD!

Photo: Paul Nett

Mexi Log Fest will be raffling off 10 new BING longboards during MXLF 21! The tickets are $100 USD each and there are only 150 tickets, so ándale pues! Winners get to choose from any of the team riders model. Max length 9’6”. (Not included shipping, color & fin) Proceeds go directly to funding Mexi Log Fest. Winners will be randomly selected as soon as all tickets are sold. Multiple raffle entries mean more chances to win! Open to individuals even if you’re not attending the event.

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