Michael Franks mailed in his recap of the barefoot figure 8 tournament to BFC… he’s got a few more first hand details, since he was actually present at the tourny. Head on over to Barefoot Central and check out the recap. There’s some pictures of the “weather” there too.
For a truly brief recap, head on over to BareFootSki dot com… they got a really young looking picture of Stokes in their story.
Just wanted to do a quick recap of what happended this past Saturday at the Mad-City Dual…
The wind was windy, the bay was still relatively sea weed free (at least at the surface) and the weather provided some excitement for everyone…
With the wind blowing strong in Madison, the normlly calm bay, proved to be a bit rougher than normal. Rougher to the point that the longest 8 of the day was half an 8, which was put up by Paul Stokes. Ironically, if the bay had been weedier, the water would have been calmer, but you can’t have everything.
Roughly 18 to 20 footers suited up for the off again, then back on again, figure 8 tournament. From what I heard, there were supposed to be a few more, but they opted out at the last minute. There was a group from Michigan that made the long haul to Madison for the tourny and they had a good time.
Paul Stokes added another ring to the Mad-City Dual Championship Ring collection that he has going, but not before he missed a step off… rumor on the street is Frank the Tank has a good series of pictures of this rare event. Meanwhile Footstock Dave managed to catch a lot of the many falls on video, which once posted, should provide a lot of entertainment.
Afterwards, most of the footers headed over to Olin Park for some frosty beverages at the Clean Lakes Festival. They arrived in time to catch a bit of the bands, drink some beer and eat some foot before the weather kicked into high gear. It went from a hot, muggy day to pretty cool in a matter of moments, storms popped up out of nowhere, we saw clouds moving in a circular motion over the lake as everyone kept drinking beer until the festival was called to do severe weather.
Props to the One Love Footing Team for putting this together with Paul Stokes and congrats to Stokes for winning yet again.
I’m hoping to get some more first hand details, pictures, and potentially some video to post from this event.
I guess this recap became a little bit longer than I thought it would be.
Work and getting my ski team on the water has been keeping me busy, but I did see the recap posted by Barefoot Central written by Aaron Schoelzel. There are some good details on how the race went between the 3 boats at the front of the race. Be sure to check it out for details about just how close the race was. And yes, my team was one of the teams throwing up rollers for leaders to go through on their way back to the finish-start line.
They also have a couple videos in their recap… the first has interviews with the top 3 teams…
Download Best Dam Top 3
The second video has 8 minutes of them chatting in the car on the way to the race, but watch the end for the interview with Teri Bell, one of the race organizers (with her sister Sandy singing in the background) and some other late night antics at the bar. Be warned, look away at the end…
Download Best Dam Antics Start 8 Minuts In
Finally, over at Barefoot Racing Endurance, there’s a little more insight from Viper who was on the 2nd place team. Here’s what he wrote about the race…
From my point of view – an incredible race: very fast, almost no mistakes. There were 7 lead changes – Jim Devens laid the early pace at 49-50 mph. Once Jim dropped out it was Tony and I within a boat length to the end of the lake, around the turn and back a 1/4 mile. Once Tony went down, I asked for all the speed the driver would give me for another mile.
Here’s where the only mistake there was in the race – when I signalled for the transition the handle slipped out of my hand. This led to a slow transition which allowed Ace in the Hole to pass us and get back in the lead.
A1 put down an impressive run. Just a couple miles in, Chuck caught a toe and went down putting MVS back in front. Ace’s next footer ran very hot closing some of the distance so we picked up the pace to 51+. When the 3rd Ace footer transitioned, MVS transitioned. The rest of the way we transitioned together with MVS running about 20 seconds ahead. Unfortunately, we had one transition remaining. So with a deep sigh, we made the final transition less then 1/4 from the finish putting in Mike Schnieder. Ace passed us during that transition and cruised in for the win.
Pavestone was right there only 1 minute back. Definitely their best showing and sending a message that they will be a force come this fall.
Disappointing for us, but a great battle.
Definitely want to see the video from Pavestone.
– Viper
Ok, maybe that’s overstating my writing abilities a bit, but here goes…
The Best Dam Barefoot Race 2008 was a race for the ages and after 22 miles, it came down to nearly a photo finish because of some crazy footin ability. I don’t know all the details, because my team wasn’t even to the turn around boat at the half way point, but here’s the story that I heard…
MVS #1 was cruising to the finish line, with the 2nd place boat still around the bend, when the remembered they need to have all of their skiers ski in the race at least once. Yes, you’re reading that right, after 22 miles, the 4 or 5 man barefoot team hadn’t even gone through a single complete rotation yet. For me, that’s simply mind bogolling. 22 miles and you hadn’t made it through your whole rotation yet? So about 200 yards from the finish line, they had to drop their footer and do one last footer change. Not sure if there was some difficulties on the change or what, but as they were finishing, Ace In the Hole came around the last bend and beat them to the finish line by 16 seconds. Footstock Dave Mueller was watching from his perch at the Moonlight Bar and I’m hoping he caught this footage on video. He’s always caring his camera around, lets hope he used it. Following MVS #1, MVS #2 crossed the finish line 1:17 behind them. Top 3 spots seperate by 93 seconds. Very close race.
Ace in the Hole featured Chuck Gleason from Barefoot Central, Aaron Schoelzel a past Footstock champion (and RAJ member), Chris Van Zeeland (another Footstock Champion) and 1 or 2 other skiers that I wasn’t familiar with. Clearly, they were stocked with talent. MVS #1 featured footers from St Louis that love to barefoot race. I don’t know all their names, but they come to win and practice for this stuff all the time. They also have a little racap on their Barefoot Endurance Racing Website. They have a first hand account of the ending.
The final results from the race are…
1st Place – Ace in the Hole in 23 minutes and 7 seconds
2nd Place – MVS #1 in 23:23
3rd Place – MVS #2 Pavestone in 24:40
4th Place – Hot Footers in 30:48 (the Beaver Dam Team)
5th Place – Webfooters in 49:40
6th Place – Mad-City in 63:43
Overall, the race, hosted by the Beaverland Must-Skis and Teri Bell, was very well run. The weather more or less cooperated. A little wind that created a few rougher spots on the lake, air temps in the 60s kept everyone from completely freezing, and there was no rain!!! Dawn and Woody’s Moonlight Bar provided a great place to start from and celebrate afterwards. Everyone that stuck around got to hear Footstock Dave take the mike to sing some karaoke. Surprisingly, he sang pretty well. Later on, Chuck did a duet with Dave on the karaoke stage. Bugsy, from the Mad-City team, treated us to an old boy band song (NKOB?) while the Bell family rocked a variety of music.
Props to BareFoot Central for providing some door prizes for the footers and Footstock for providing a free entry into the competition as a door prize as well.
Check back here a little later this week, as I’ve got some footage from our boat of the start of the race. All the boats taking off is quite a sight.
The 2008 Frostbite Figure 8 Tournament was last weekend. I wasn’t able to attend, but based on what I’ve heard, the weather was much better than expected. 45ish, blue skies and just a little wind. Much better than the anticipated weather of snow or rain and clouds. A little more wind than people wanted, but it could have been much worse.
UW-Stout did a good hosting the tournament once again. The results were:
The after parties must have been pretty good based on the drunk dials I received. Over at BFC Aaron Schoelzel posted a good recap with some added comentary from Footstock Dave. For more details of the shanigans from the weekend, go check out the BFC.com story.
The last couple weeks have featured the first figure 8 tournaments of the year. The first was down in Oscala where KSO took home the top prize. Check out BareFootSki dot com for a full recap.
This weekend up in De Pere, WI, 12 brave footers took to the frigid water for the first northern tournmament of the year, the De Dere Figure 8. Marc Donahue of Indiana took home the bragging rights to this tournament. A fuller recap is available at BareFootSki dot com once again.
Next up is the Frost-Bite Figure 8 hosted by UW-Stout this coming weekend (May 3rd, starts at 10am.)
Be sure to check out BareFootSki dot com. In addition to barefooting news, they’ve got a forum, pictues and some decent videos up there as well, including this video of some old school barefooting.
http://www.barefootski.com/albums/album07/SkiChampsAction.wmv
Download Vintage Barefooting – Cypress Gardens (BareFootSki dot com)
This past weekend I attended Winter Waterland hosted by the Rock Aqua Jay. I’d like to congratulate and thank them for an excellent event. Granted this event was barefoot specific, but it was the only event going on in the state of Wisconsin that would allow people to get some water time in the month of January.
Granted there is a fair amount of skiing going on in the state of Wisconsin right now, but most of it it taking place on hills… like Cascade, Devils Head or Tyrol Basin. Some of the lakes are busy too… lots of ice shanties dot the landscape and snowmobiles cruise around the lakes. Boats are typically no where to be scene. But this past weekend, the worlds of boating, waterskiing and snow mobiling colided.
The scene was the Anchor Inn located in the booming metropolis of Newville, WI. Located at the Highway 59 exit off of Interstate 90… the exit with McDonalds, Culvers and the big apple in the sky (really not sure what that is, but it’s there). The crowd began to gather in the morning and registration was a bit frantic. It was a perfect winter day for waterskiing and people wanted in on the event. Mid 20s, overcast and snow falling with the occassional chuncks of ice floating down the river.
Once registration was complete they launched the boats and started crusing around the river a little bit to get them warmed up. The only problem is, with the boats creating some waves, I think they broke some more ice free from up river and then ice starting flowing down the river in ernest. About 45 minutes later, the flow of ice finally started to subside and the first skiiers, already suited up, began to get a little anxious. People wanted to get on the water.
The first skier of the day was a little girl (didn’t catch her name) and took to the water on her swivel ski to the cheers of the crowd. Subsequent skiers did the same… more swivelers, slalomers, trick skiers and what not. Everyone had fun. Some of the skiers, mainly the little ones and some the ladies were carried from the dock to the hot tub that was waiting to reheat everyone.
As the skiing continued, the ice flow down the river continued to get less and less and finally the barefooters were allowed to hit the water. Many people just did steps offs, while I was one of the first to do a deep water start, fulling taking the brunt of the cold water. I won’t say my run impressed the world… it was short, through some rough water, ending with some face plants. But it was fun at a cost of about $2/second for the run. Still worth it. As I made my way off the dock I ran into Ben from the Must-Skis. I looked at him and mentioned that it was Miller Time now and he was nice enough to hand me his can of Miller Lite. I handed it back to him empty a moment later.
Tommy and Chad from Beaverland really got their money’s worth. They doubled up their runs… Tommy road along with Chad on his run and Chad road along with Tommy on his run. So they each got two pulls. They had some of the more successful barefoot runs of the day, with one of them even managing to throw a tumble turn.
As the skiing and barefooting wound down, the activity in the bar, the Anchor Inn, picked up. People piled in , ordered food and drink and even some raffle tickets to help raise money for the Rock Aqua Jays. The bar was busy, but dealt with the crush of people quickly. I had some of their cheese curds, which were very good.
I had to leave a little early, really just as the party was getting started, to head to another event, but I’m sure the rest of the party was a good time. Talking with Joel from the Aqua Jays, he mentioned that about 35 people or so took to the water. Much props to the Rock Aqua Jays, Anchor Inn, Ski H20 and the rest of the sponsors for hosting a great event.
They did announce that this will become an annual event for the Jays that will take place the weekend before the Superbowl. Looking forward to it 2009.
The Bikini Girls from Madison… Heather, KTB and Anna
Mad-City Wedge 