Date: 9/26/02
Author: David Williams
Photos: David Williams

Related Items:
2002 Wakeboard Expo Photo Gallery
2001 Wakeboard Expo

Welcome to the show!

The annual Surf Expo, known to our industry as the Wakeboard and Waterski Expo, is where manufacturers show off all their new goodies for the upcoming year and try to get retailers to write up fat orders for the upcoming season. The Orlando Convention Center bustles with buyers and salespeople putting deals together and the fondling of 2003 product.

Expo is an interesting place. Every manufacturer's representative is so busy that appointments are almost always necessary. Among the crowd you'll see pro athletes wandering the aisles in search of new sponsors. Models shipped in by many companies provide a touch of human eye candy to draw potential customers into their booths. If not, they most certainly have something shiny, glistening, blinking or making way too much noise to attract the elusive buyer.

In addition to the new products crowding the floor, a keen ear will also pick up plenty of inside gossip and news affecting the industry. Below you'll find a little of everything that Expo has to offer. News, pics, celebs and more, not necessarily in that order...

Let's start with everybody's favorite, the board companies. There were a couple missing this year due to non-existence, which almost always make a good showing difficult. Serum wakeboards fell victim to financial and other difficulties almost before it even got started, so they are no longer with us. Neptune's parent company decided to stop producing their wakeboard line and focus on their accessory line-up of Straightline Ropes, Launch Pads, Universal Bindings, etc. They may end up selling the business so it's possible that it will pop up again in the future, but who knows.

Liquid Force wake surfboard

Krown wakeboards, which usually has one of the pimpest (and I only use that tired term because it literally looked like a pimp designed them) booths, was conspicuously absent as well, but I'm not sure why. Also missing were Thruster Wakeboards and Kampus Wakeskates. I'm not sure about the status of Thruster, but I do know that Kampus is alive and well and producing wakeskates for 2003. In fact, they have recently separated from American Boardsports, Inc., which owned both Thruster and Kampus, and are now a separate company.

For the board companies that did make it out, we saw lots of new goodies and exciting ideas. Many had new materials on the bottoms of their boards to help the boards hold up under the stress of sliders and other obstacles. Everybody's line up looked great with exciting new shapes and killer graphics.

Liquid Force had a couple of different wake surfboards. One was a hand-shaped prototype that looked like a small surfboard with a lot of traction pads on it. The other was a soft top version with more of a body board type of feel to it produced by their former roommates BZ Boards. They have the new 4-Trac Cassette which allows wakeskaters to strategically place the fins to allow locked in nose grinds on a smooth rail. As far as sizing goes, they've got a new micro series and XXL series of products for the extra small and extra larger riders respectively.

Hyperlite has gone away from wood in their high end wakeskates and are now compression molding them again. Major innovations included the Boa cable tightening system on the Byerly bindings and Parks all carbon handle. They also have introduced a new wake surfboard called the Landlock. Hyperlite is also the first board company to get their 2003 gear online. Check out their newly redesigned site at http://www.hyperlite.com.

Josh Sanders and pro model, Vision

O'Brien gets the prize for the most boards with pro's names on them with four boards sporting the names of Darin Shapiro, Cobe Mikacich, Daniel Watkins and Josh Sanders. Randy Harris is no longer riding for team O'Brien, but it appears that his board shape will still be available in the ironically named, Absence. O'Brien has also jumped into the wake surfing market with a wood version aptly named, Woodie.

Jobe showed off the new Brett Eisenhauer model, which looked great. Blindside and Double Up have come back with a terrific looking line of gear with some design help from the legendary Greg Nelson. Core always has a unique offering with the thinnest boards on the market and custom graphics. This year was no exception as they showed off the LBZ girls graphics. CWB has another solid line up and I'm always impressed with the way they have their riders in the booth the whole weekend selling product.

The new kid on the block, Joyride, was sporting five boards for their first year as well as a stock car in their booth that, when started unexpectedly, caused many to soil their shorts. Although Origin used to press their boards for them, they are apparently going to be doing all the production themselves from here on out. Speaking of Origin, they are currently moving their operations from Texas to California, is producing some great looking stuff and had a wake surfer of their own, which was very similar to the body board type that Liquid Force is offering. Finally, Gator Boards was represented by Gator himself and they have added an additional four boards to their already deep line-up giving them a total of 12 for 2003.

Phase 5 wake surf line up

Other board companies that appear to be entering into the wake sports realm are the wake surfing players. There were quite a few at the show in addition to the offerings from the wakeboard companies mentioned above. Look for wake surfboards from Inland Surfer, Phase 5 and Trick Boards.

Other eye-popping goodies on hand were a TV screen built into a Roswell Tower. When I walked by, they were playing Playstation in the tower. Very cool. The nicest looking wakeskate shoe I've seen was on display from 3 Thirteen. It's got holes drilled in the soles to let water drain out. Seems simple, but they say they've got a patent pending. Reef has a new wakeskate shoe as well with Scott Byerly's seal of approval on it.

Nevin has a hard board bag that will really help to reduce any damage to your equipment in flight or elsewhere. Nice bindings has 16, count 'em 16, different wakeboarding binding models for 2003. Shaun Murray's Pro Wakeboarder from Activision was available for play on four screens throughout the show and looks to be an incredible game.

Daniel and Lauren Harf's dad has started a company called Wedgies that mainly produces boxer shorts with interesting designs on them. However, they now have T-shirts with the likenesses of some of the top wakeboarding pros, such as Parks and Shane bonifay, Brian Grubb, Scott Byerly, Chad Sharpe and Daniel Harf.

2003 MasterCraft X-Star

There were a few boat companies that also made an appearance at the Expo, the most flamboyant of which was MasterCraft with their drastically redesigned X-Star. This is one impressive looking boat and you've got to hand it to them for thinking out of the box on this one. We also saw a couple of tower offering that had the mounts toward the rear of the boats with the towers swooping forward. This new look is available from Tige and Malibu.

Now that we've given you the lowdown on the exciting products, let's get into company personnel. As mentioned above, Randy Harris is without a home since O'Brien let him go. Also looking for work is Ricky Gonzalez, who was let go by Hyperlite and is reportedly in talks with CWB. Ryan Wolfe is no longer with Jobe. Matt Staker is now riding for Joyride along with Women's Amateur national champion, Tiffany Landry, with whom I had the pleasure to ride on the cable out at the Orlando Watersports Complex. Andrew Adkison has signed on with Mastercraft and will soon be sporting one of them new-fangled X-Stars. He's also moving in with Shaun Murray, which certainly won't hurt his training regimen. Collin Wright, who was last riding for the aforementioned and now defunct Serum, has plans to start his own board company in 2003. It will be called Empire Wakeboards and will start producing early next year.

Shaun Murray's Pro Wakeboarder

Expo is always a great time to release a magazine. We saw new issues from Alliance, Butter, Wake Boarding and Level 10. Wake Boarding has recently added a new editor, Matt Hickman, a new managing editor, Jana Waring and a new associate editor, Mike Reilly, to the staff. Butter has stepped up from its thin newspaper-style publication to a serious 132-page magazine style book. Alliance editor-at-large, Tony Smith, broke his arm wakeskating. And finally, the new editor of Wakeboard Canada, replacing Bryan Gardner, will be Guillaume Paré.

In addition to the four mags currently putting out books, we were also introduced to a brand new wakeboarding magazine brought to you by a gentleman named Steve Thomson. Steve started with former Wakeboard Canada editor, Bryan Gardner, and built a staff that includes former Wake Boarding managing editor, Kevin Michael. The magazine is called Ride and, although they didn't have an issue to release to the public yet, they did show off the cover for the first issue. The cover features 21 of the top wakeboarders toasting the launch of the new magazine with champagne and attitude. Look for out takes from the photo session, including one with Parks stripped down to nothing but a smile, to be included in the first issue, which should be available in late November.

Roswell Wake Air tower with television

Ride founder, Steve Thomson, will also be the man behind a professional wakeboard tour run by the riders next year. So far, there aren't many details available, but you can look for the tour stops to be plenty entertaining with some talented bands featured at each stop.

The Pro Tour that you're already familiar with has hired Sean Dishman to run the operations. Sean has built his reputation off of the many popular X-Cup events he's run in Florida. These guys are ahead of the game this year and have announced their dates already, which are as follows:

• Apr 12-13 - Orlando, FL at Cranes Roost Park
• May 16-18 - Charleston, SC at Trophy Lakes
• Jun 7-8 - Detroit, MI at Island Lake Park
• Jun 28-29 - Portland, OR at Blue Lake Park
• Jul 12-13 - Kelowna, BC, Canada at Lake Okanagan
• Jul 26-27 - Irvine, CA at Irvine Lake

Sean Dishman will also be putting on an event at OWC on the evening of 9/29. It's called Lost Soldiers and is a tribute to wakeboard friends no longer with us such as Todd Brendel, Corey Kraut and Mark Kenney. Get in touch with Sean at sean.dishman@worldpub.net for more info.

Well, that's about all that my little brain was able to absorb and bring back from Orlando. I hope you enjoyed it.

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