The 2007 Wind and Water Open, formerly known as "The Velocity Games":

Sunday, May 13: The Final Day (finally)

Words by Stacey Fonas

Posted Sunday May 20th 2007

Sunday 13 May

I got up early and was at the bar by 7 AM. Yes, the bar, which, coincidentally, is the ONLY place in the hotel that I can get an internet connection. Even at that hour, the hotel was brimming with kiter activity, surprising after such a big party the night before. Clinton walked by with a purposeful look on his face (I whistled at him but he just kept walking), and Alex Bloechinger crashed into a seat next to me for a few minutes, with the information that either he hadn't been to bed yet, or he'd only been asleep for a half hour, yet Neil was already calling him to go help Zach Kleppe set up the sliders. Zach had been up building them or assembling them or something all night ... since there wasn't going to be wind, we needed something to do. Kristin got up shortly and we wandered down to the event site and set up the Best tent.

Pretty much the whole Best team was up early .... Will, Andy, Kristin, Clinton. Everyone's wearing sunglasses because the sun was sooooo bright.

Sean Reyngoudt is the newest additon to the Best team. He won the Wakeboard Event in last year's Extremity Games, and although he only started kiting about 7 months ago, he's already throwing down some pretty advanced moves. He does a lot of work with other amputees, helping them realize that life doesn't have to be over just because you lose a limb, and gives new meaning to the term "inspirational." To see him ride, right click here (and open in a new window) ... he comes on towards the end.

We didn't even bother to have a rider's meeting, and no one dragged out the buoys, which should tell you something about how little hope anyone had that we'd be kiting today. The forecast was that bad, like 1 knot. So everyone just started jumping on the back of the jetski and going over the sliders. After about a half hour of filming, my video battery ran out of juice, thus ending the video portion of the Velocity Games, which was too bad ... the only time there was actually any filmable action and my battery runs out. Andy, it goes without saying, was amazing and made it look really easy. It isn't.

It took me 3 tries of getting pulled over on my face before I even GOT UP ... which was very embarrassing. How can you go over the slider if you can't even get up behind the ski? And when I finally did get up, for my first try, I hit the rail, fell off, and crashed into the ramp, cracking my board against the rail and making a loud noise which everyone on the beach heard and thought I broke my leg. To make it worse, the ski ran out of gas right then, so instead of looking like what it was ... stopping to go get more gas ... it looked like it was all just too much for me and we had to close up shop before somebody lost an eye.

The LF people erected 2 kites and made a nice little tent area, right in front of the slider, where everyone hung out and watched people being pulled over, and into, the slider. For the people NOT going over the slider, it was a pretty mellow day. For the people going over the slider, it was action packed and pretty intense.

Or, if you wanted to watch the carnage from the water, the LF people also had a nice little raft where you could float around in the crystal clear water. (Although there wasn't much carnage as far as the guys were concerned ... it was mostly the girls ... me, Clarissa and Nicci ... that did the most crashing.)

I think the crashes were almost more painful for the spectators to watch than for the rider to live through ... whenever someone would crash and hit the rail, the people watching would all kind of duck and flinch and say, "Owwww!!"

This is my first attempt at putting together a sequence, and I know you're not supposed to have lines splitting each frame ... but oh well, you get the picture. Billy Parker was very impressive. The rail is about as wide as the length of a pen. To have the kind of balance to do a 360 on it? That takes skills. And girls like guys with skills.

Perhaps if you had skills like that, you too could have girlfriends like this.

Somehow, I'd lost my place in line after the ski got filled with gas, but I wasn't complaining ... I was scared out of my mind. I was also very happy that Andy was driving ... made me feel a lot more confident. After I crashed my first attempt, he stopped the ski and gave me a few pointers, which really seemed to help: on the next try, I rode up the rail, hit the top part for a second, got pulled off, and rode away. Rode away!! For me that was huge ... that was my only goal, to ride away, so while to the rest of the world, it looked pretty tame, for me, it was the highlight of my weekend.

Thanks to Sam Medysky, and Andy Hurdman, for driving, all day long.

Then, at 5 PM, Neil officially called the event. Turned off his microphone, and said, "The competition is officially over." And then, GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!!! Really. Guess what happened next.

Let me recap: there's a 3-day kiting event, in one of the most consistently windy places in the country, and there is absolutely no wind on any of those 3 days. Then, the contest is called off.

So, did you guess? Yep! THE WIND TURNED ON!!! I kid you not. The moment Neil turned off his microphone, the wind started to blow. Not A LOT of wind ... I was on my 17m Pro and had to keep getting out of the water and running back upwind, as did everyone else ... but enough wind to get almost all the kiters into the water at once, for a big kooky clusterf*^k of everyone getting in everyone's way, not being able to stay upwind, and not being powered enough to do much. It was a real zoo, and not a whole lot of fun, but still! We got to ride!

Here is my explanation for what happened: The God of the Velocity Games was angry that they changed the name of his event to the "2007 Wind and Water Open" at the last minute, thus screwing him out of chance to strut his stuff. So he wreaked his vengeance by shutting of the wind machine ... until the VERY MOMENT the Games .... I mean "the OPEN" ... was called off. So, I hope this is a lesson to the organizers. You just can't go changing such a well-established name like that at the last minute. You really think anyone is going to call it "The Wind and Water Open"? No. Everyone STILL calls it the Velocity Games, and probably will ALWAYS call it the Velocity Games. "Opens" are for men in Izod shirts playing golf. And although some of us might be old, we didn't come here to wear Izods and play golf.

Picture 1: I was so sure I wouldn't need my 121 Drive to go kiting that I'd already started taking the fins off. But when the winds came up so suddenly, I couldn't find anyone with a screwdriver to screw it back in. Thankfully, the policeman Kristin had given a lesson to was very resourceful: he pulled a penny out of his pocket and screwed it in for me. Thanks, Tim! Picture 2: After finally getting out on the water after a weekend of sitting around doing nothing, Clinton "Golden Boy" Bolton pauses for a moment to give thanks to the heavens.

What wind there was lasted maybe an hour and a half, then everyone started packing up for good. One of the equipment trucks got stuck and everyone except me and that one guy in the orange-red shorts helped push it out.

Even though there wasn't a competition, we still had to have a "wrap-up prize giving ceremony" at a restaurant/bar a few miles away from the hotel. Zach Kleppe won the Peter Nordby award, which is basically a "Spirit Award" ... nicest guy, most helpful guy, guy who went out of his way to do the most for the other riders, etc ... and since he stayed up all night long putting the sliders together so that the rest of us could have something to do, it was a well-deserved win, as far as everyone was concerned. Hamish McDonald got the Best Crash Award for hitting the slider on a kite and taking the whole thing out so that it had to be completely resurrected. And then, for the winner of "Best Trick Over the Slider" .... it was pretty close. Denver Coon was a serious contender, but Andy Hurdman eeked out a win in the end.

Unfortunately, at the moment the awards were being announced, Andy was driving through the streets of Corpus Christi, lost, trying to find the bar. So it was just like that scene from the Sound of Music, when the Von Trappe family singers win the big competition at the festival, but then make their escape for freedom before the winners are announced. The announcer, announcing the winners, shouts, "The VON TRAPPE FAMILY SINGERS!!" And the audience cheers ..... clap clap clap clap clap. But then nothing ... no Von Trappe Family Singers. So he tries again: "The Von Trappe Family Singers!!" Clap clap clap clap clap. But nothing, still no Von Trappe Family singers.

It was exactly like that with Andy. "ANDY HURDMAN!" clap clap clap clap clap. "Andy Hurdman!!!" Clap clap clap clap clap. But no Andy Hurdman. So they eventually moved on. What can you do?

Not much, but what I can do is photoshop him in, so it looks like he was there. He was very excited to win ... because it means NEXT year, when he comes back AGAIN to Texas for the Velocity Games, he gets TWO NIGHTS FREE at the Omni Hotel! That not only makes HIM happy, but it makes US, as his sponsors, happy as well!!!

There was some more partying later that night in various people's rooms ... we kept having to move rooms and try to stay one step ahead of the Hotel Noise Patrol ... but those pictures are probably best kept locked in the vault. The next morning, we said a fond farewell to the bus ... and left it in the temporary care of a wonderfully kind woman named Maggie, who would hand it off to Team Rider Miguel Willis, who was arriving on Wednesday to drive it up to Hatteras.

And that is the end of the 2007 Wind and Water Open/Velocity Games. For an event without wind, it was still a whole lot of fun. Thanks to all of the organizers, volunteers, and sponsors for putting the whole thing together!