Lake Hawea's Small, a veteran of big mountain skiing, outscored his Wanaka free-skiing rival Sam Smoothy in the final of the first event in the 2009 New Zealand Freeski Open, held at the Remarkables skifield, on Saturday.
Wanaka skier Janina Kuzma defended her women's Freeski Open title for the fifth straight year.
"I'm so happy to win again. Conditions were great. I found my line and stuck to it," she said.
Hall scored 8.17 out of a possible 10 with his winning run to card a record eight wins in an event he first entered in 1996.
"I knew I had to do something different today," he said.
Judges called Small's skiing line down the steep terrain of the Remarkable's Alta Chutes "massive".
A "calculated" choice of line down the mountain included several "huge airs" off massive cliff drops, the judges said.
Smoothy, the New Zealand freeski team's leading big mountain exponent, was unable to claim a title he last won in 2007 from the veteran Small.
Swiss skier Jeremie Heitz finished third in the men's competition, while Sweden's Rebecka Eriksson and Austrian Lorraine Huber claimed second and third in the women's event.
Leading New Zealand cross-country skier Katie Calder won her second race in the Australia New Zealand (ANZ) Continental Cup, on Saturday, to claim the top position in the FIS series ranking.
Calder's win in the 5km race, at the New South Wales ski resort of Perisher Valley, pushed her past her Australian rival Esther Bottomley.
The pair are battling each other in the women's ANZ Continental Cup race series and trying to win a coveted place on the northern hemisphere FIS World Cup racing circuit.
New Zealand's male cross-country skiers took part in their first race of the ANZ series.
Ben Koons, of Dunedin, finished ninth in the men's 10km race and Nat Anglem, of Christchurch, finished 13th.
ANZ Cup racing now moves across the Tasman, to Wanaka.
The next three events will take place at the Snow Farm, as part of the New Zealand Winter Games, next week.
