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The 2007 Wind and Water Open Something or Other, formerly known as "The Velocity Games"
Friday, Day One: Bordercross and Racing
Words and most photos by Stacey Fonas
Posted Saturday May 11th 2007
Friday 11 May: Day 1
Because I exist on very little sleep and can fully function despite the number of green apple martinis I've had the night before, I was pretty much up before everyone. A riders meeting was scheduled for either 10 or 10:30, but this is not the PKRA and meetings never really seem to start on time so we just hung out collecting our freebie bags, event shirts, and racing jerseys.
Where I'm standing taking this picture is pretty much where everyone who enters the event site has to walk. Way way way down, past the Flexi flag and the tent on the right, and almost near the little white tent on the left is where they originally said we should put the Best tent, but we were kind of lonely down there, so we picked it up by its 4 posts and walked it down to where I'm standing when I took this picture. As you can see, it was a lovely sunny day.
Our new and improved location was right next to the Army Tent, which was heavily attempting to recruit kiteboarders into the militia, and which had a really cool climbing wall set up. The wall looks easy, but after 2 climbs your forearms are killing you, and if there turns out to be wind, there is no way you're going to be able to do the massive unhooked kiteloops you were planning to wow the crowd with. Drat.
Lucky for me, I learned that the age limit has recently been raised to 42, so I still have time to enlist. I probably should. Perhaps if my parents had sent me to military school as a youth, I might have amounted to something. So ... we'll see ... I've got the whole weekend to decide.
Kristin with Youri Zoon and Madison Van Heurck. Everyone was kind of honoredly bummed that Youri showed up. "Crap ... now I'm not gonna win." Which is kind of how I feel about kristin and every other girl who showed up, practically.
Neil ran the rider's meeting, at around 11:30, although when there's no wind, time doesn't really matter because no one's doing anything anyway.
We all hung out listening to the bordercross and racing rules ...
Girls hanging out listening to the bordercross and racing rules ...
Guys hanging out listening to the bordercross and racing rules ...
But since there was still no wind, we just went into postponement mode. Teammates Andy Hurdman and Kristin Boese met for the first time, if you don't count last night, and I'd like to not count last night. I'd like a do-over of last night, actually, and I'd like to apologize to everyone I might have 1) said mean things to, 2) said stupid things to, 3) said things that were exactly the opposite of what I really felt to, 4) insulted, or 5) stormed away from angrily for no reason.
Then it started raining. The Brady/Bam/Best Family hid under their tents.
A couple of the guys who'd tried to slog around on big kites came in, and then the rain pretty much killed what little baby wind there was.
Keri with the two Best girls she'd hired to walk around and pose at the booth and look hot.
Ryan hooked Kristin up with an interview ...
... and when it cleared up, we decided to throw up a couple of trainer kites and give quick little lessons to interested bystanders. And if we couldn't find interested bystanders, we recruited them, ie, forced them. "You look like you want to learn to kite. Get over here."
It was a good day, kitewise, for Corpus Christi's men in uniform. Oh, to be taught by the World Champ, if only they could appreciate the significance of the moment. Both the Army and the Police Force got the royal treatment.
We also talked Jane, a very cool girl who was working the event for one of the event sponsors, into flying the kite. She gets the "Most Likely to Become a Kiter Award" for the day. It's all about finesse, and she didn't drop the kite once.
After a day of sitting around, everyone was tired. The Best Family, avec chien (French for "with dog") fell asleep under their tent, and that was it for the day. Packed up the tent and went back to the hotel.
After dinner, we all met up and headed over to the House of Rock where there was supposed to have been some sort of party, but there was absolutely no one in there and the band sucked. It was early ... about 9PM ... but that was fine with me. Water and Diet Coke night only.
Which one of these things just doesn't belong here, which one of these things isn't kind of the same. Just kidding. Hi, Ben!! How're things over at Naish?
We sat around outside the hotel for a bit, watching everyone else filter back from the dead House of Rock with the sucky band.
Then these guys went out and did a bit of damage around town, I'm told, but fortunately for them, I was upstairs sleeping with my camera turned off :) .
