Josh Kerr beats Taj to win the Drug Aware Pro

The 6-star PRIME WQS Drug Aware Pro at Margaret River in Western Australia wrapped up yesterday, and what a finish it was. Josh Kerr came from behind to beat the home town favorite Taj Burrow in the final heat, to claim the win and keep Taj from winning yet another contest. The waves were going off throughout the final contest which provided for some excellent surfing from all the guys.

Taj started out the heat strong, putting down a 8.5 on his first wave and then shortly after backed it up with an 8 leaving Kerr combo’ed early on. It wasn’t until late in the heat with only 5 minutes left that Kerr started to turn things around. He landed three seriously insane airs and had 2 really excellent waves scoring a perfect 10 and a 7.0. The dude really went nuts on those last couple of waves and I can’t believe he stuck those airs. The final score of the heat was Josh Kerr with a 17.03 and Taj Burrow with a 16.5.

After the heat, Kerr-azy man himself had this to say,

“I said I’m going in on this wave and as I rode the wave I thought I’d try and put on a show for the crowd and pull a big air, I landed it, saw another section and landed again and all of a sudden I have a perfect 10 point ride and I’m in with a chance!”

“I grabbed another smaller one on the way back out, knew that on a smaller wave I’d have to again go big with an aerial and I landed again! – It all happened so fast that I’m still shocked, It’s easily the biggest win of my career and I can’t believe it.”

This is a big boost (no pun intended) for Josh and hopefully it will give him the momentum to keep it up and qualify for the WCT next year.

If you didn’t get to see the contest, check out the video and picture highlights of the final heat below.

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