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Jake Julien and his Rated X team are the big winners — not just the Miami Winter Series Event No.4 but also the overall Miami Winter Series and its coveted rooster trophy. Unstoppable! New to the fleet last year, the young team has been building and growing all season long. What a smokin’ hot streak: back-to-back event wins, the Friday Cup event win, the Friday Cup series win — and, of course, the best-in-show rooster trophy for the Winter Series. Consistency proved key for Julien and his team of Keith Swinton, Rhys Mara, Julius Hallstrom, and Jeff McCooey supported by Morgan Reeser, Kyle Kandt, and Franny Schulte. This weekend saw a busy Biscayne Bay with 11 M32s charging hard for 3-5 races a day, each with a 17-minute race target time. In typical M32 fashion, every inch of every race matters: The event podium was wide open until the finish line of the final race. Julien topped the leaderboard followed by Jen Wilson’s Convergence and James Prendergast’s Golddigger. |
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Jake Julien is getting quite good at the champagne spray. Rounding out the Winter Series podium is Ryan McKillen and his ever-competitive Surge team and Jake’s father Bobby Julien, leader of the Dingbats. Hesitant at first but pressured to give a speech, Jake exuded humble gratitude: “I’ll start by saying thank you to my dad! And thank you to Morgan [Reeser] and the rest of my team. It’s really all of them that made us win. I’m just in the back driving, so it’s really all of them that should be up here giving this speech.” Next up, the fleet goes to Lake Garda, Italy and Newport, Rhode Island, USA for four events each. It all leads up to the World Championship in Newport this fall for the biggest event of the year. Then back to Miami! A demo boat is available at all events. On Friday night, the M32 peloton rolled up to the Rapha Miami Clubhouse for beer, wine, charcuterie, poké bowls, and plenty of laughs after the first day on the water – all thanks to fleet stalwart Don Wilson and his Convexity team. |
