On February 18th 8 of the best riders from the Dominican Republic embarked on a trip to the first PKRA event of 2014 located in Punta Chame, Panama and hosted at Travis Pastrana’s Nitro City Action Sports Resort. Luis Alberto Cruz, Posito Martinez, Alex Soto Ciriaco, Elvis Pichardo Hidalgo, Robinson Hilario, Katie Bowcutt, Nico Suriel, and Ariel Corniel would all do their part to remind the kiteboarding world that Cabarete ain’t nothin’ to mess with.
Although all of the riders did amazing, one stood out among the rest of the field—Robinson Hilario. After a 2 year hiatus from competing in the PKRA, Hilario showed up prepared to stomp trick after trick after trick, even beating 5 time world champion Aaron Hadlow in 2 separate heats. By the time all was said and done, Hilario was able to pull out 2nd place over all.
And you know what that means…PARTY!!! So, we invited about 30 of our closest friends from Kite Beach to join us at our on site restaurant Coco Loco for some pasta, drinks, and cake with Nutella. MMMMMMMM…nutella. Oh and rum, of course. And even though the guys were tired and maybe we put the event together out of selfishness because we wanted to hang with the cool kids, it was awesome. Coco Loco really pulled out all of the stops for the celebration and it was nice to give the riders a big hug and hear all about their adventures.
When we think about it, we are so very lucky to have a hotel on one of the best kiting beaches in the world. Although watching the PKRA livestream of the event is great, we get to see these guys and girls riding from our back porch every day. In our humble opinion, some of their best riding goes on here. No pressure. Perfect conditions. Lots of friends. Not sure it gets any better than that!
And now that we are finished bragging on our riders and our location, enjoy 2 videos from the event.