This past weekend I got my first chance to get in my shiny new Rockstar. I will admit that I was nervous about sizing, due to my 36” inseam and size 13 feet. The boat has exceeded all of my expectations. It is not the lazy boy that my Mon-Star was, but it is also not the foot binding that I have endured over the years in a variety of other play boats. Once I played with the outfitting I was able to sit in the boat comfortably for my whole 1.5 hour session without feeling the need to get out to give my feet a break. Dave Knight worked some serious magic on the ergonomics in this boat. The performance is what you all want to hear about so here it is. The boat is certainly a bit more aggressive than my Mon-star was. Part of that is due to the new design and in my case some of that is due to being on the low end of the Mon-Star’s weight range and moving to the higher end of the Rockstar’s weight range. The potential feels limitless! At this point I am playing catch up and need to learn my new ride. I was able to test it out in three different features in the Reno Whitewater Park. The flow we had was a bit low, so all features were all a bit shallow. The first feature is a shallow wave hole that has a green shoulder on surfers left. Two things jumped out at me right away on my first surf. The short bow did on hit when I went to blunt. That never happens at this flow! Second was the fact that the boat did not squat in the middle green section. This is a very flat, slow, and non-retentive section of the wave. My seating position is fairly far aft due to my long legs, and years ago I paddled some boats that required me to sit that far back and all wave performance was lost due to the stern not providing enough lift to put me up onto a plain. The rockstar kept me on a plain and allowed me to carve right across. With that kind of performance on a small junky wave I have no doubt that once I get it onto a good wave it will continue to impress! This exceptionally performing stern continued to impress once we got down to number five. The boat throws the fastest, most balanced ends that you could imagine. Super cleans were effortless! According to some of the folks I was paddling with I was looping just as high as I did in my Mon-star, but I will say that when you go to snap the boat around for the loop it pulls around so much faster than the Mon-star did. It almost feels like the boat is not there. My timing is not totally in sync with the rockstar yet (it is faster than I am). I know that will happen in time! Even when I did not land everything due to my timing being off the bow was very forgiving and landed with ease. Once I get some more time in the boat I will report back. The final big guy verdict is “We have a winner!” New toys rule.