NorCal INT League Wakesurfing Series Stop 1

The first ever wakesurfing series started this past Saturday May 20th at Villa Lagos. The folks at NorCal INT League, more specifically Chuck and Linda Payton are making concerted efforts to add as many different types of water related board sports as possible.

That's where the American Wakesurf Association came in. Chuck asked us to put this series of contests on for them, and the first one went with incredible success. There were a ton of prizes for the first stop, with the highlight being the Xtreme Board Company's Fish in 5'4".

The naysayers said that it couldn't be done, a wakesurfing contest in a man made lake, but judging by the smiles on all the participants faces, such claims were wrong.

Perhaps the best thing about the NorCal INT League series is the fun and commradery shared at such events. We were fortunate enough to have Jerry Price, owner of Shred Stixx assist with judging the event, as well as doing some real time announcing. Particpants were able to see his new shape and pick his brain about riding and wakesurfing shapes. Jerry is arguably the oldest manufacturer of wakesurf specific boards in existence.

Also assisting with judging was our own Dennis Horton. Dennis has been surfing most of his life, starting out in Southern California as an exhibition rider for Gordon and Smith as a young boy. Dennis is the man to talk to about wakesurfing for bigger guys.

Linda and Chuck Payton were instrumental in making this series a reality and through out the day helped us make it a huge success. Thanks Chuck and Linda for all your support and tireless effort.

The results of the first contest, and current standings in the series after stop 1 are as follows:

BOYS NOVICE

Chad Payton First Place
Josh Twlker Second Place
Justin Payton Third Place

BOYS ADVANCED

Chase Hazen First Place
James Walker Second Place
Billy Bassett Third Place

WOMENS

Raequel Hoffman First Place
Judy Walker Second Place
Shawna Hoffman Third Place

MASTERS (not old men!)

The first time in history! A three way tie for first place!

Dennis Horton First Place
Jerry Price First Place
Jeff Walker First Place


Special thanks to all of our sponsors for their support during this first stop and the remaining three stops. Inland Surfer, Entrust Clothing, The Walker Project, 2nsane, Trick Boardz, Xtreme Board Company, Wakesurfing Magazine, Calibrated Wakesurfing.

Also HUGE thanks to all of the riders and folks at NorCal INT League that helped the event be a huge success.



More pictures to follow.

Boys novive winners. Congratulations Chad, Josh and Justin.

Womens winners. Congratulations Raequel, Judy and Shawna.

Boys Advanced. Congratulations Chase, James and Billy.

The winners of the masters division. Amazingly enough, a three way tie for first place! Thanks again Jerry and Dennis. You boys rock!

Xtreme Board Company donated this board. Their Fish in ••••••••• was prominently displayed in our booth all day and was the center of a great deal of envy!

www.xtremeboardcompany.com



and the proud winner of the board! I do believe that is Josh Twelker and he was very polite, he came over to me after the final photo and thanked me for the prize! Gary, thanks for the donation of the board and for making a young man's day!

Some pictures of the action

More

One last one

Not a bad wake for such a shallow lake! How did you weigh the boat down?

everyone was goofy?

Dennis still has the yellow and he got a 210 (perfect for the goofy aspect of him). hehe

Looks like fun. Sorry I missed the event.

Hey Sean, no just 4 of 16 folks rode goofy. We just didn't get the camera out on the boat until the last four riders of the day.

Hey Tom, It was a Nautique with the wedge tank options. We filled the belly ballast, and then the rear depending on which side was being ridden. There was about 500 pounds of lead spread throughout the boat (mostly on the side being ridden) and approximately 750 pounds of ballast in the form of "people". What we noticed is that in the shallow lake, that weight in the bow had a substantial impact.

The wake wasn't bad. I won't kid you, no one walked away saying that it was the best wake they had ever ridden, but if you consider we we used a Nautique 210 on a 10 foot deep lake, we were all pleased with the result.

Hey Laci, we missed you! Isn't that big 'ole board of Dennis' funny? He was rippin' it up, put me to shame!

Jeff,
Jerry paddling for 100 feet back into the wake put both of us to shame.

Dennis

I forgot all about that! Jerry is ripping the wake and starts to float out the back. The tail of his board is in the wash and he falls to a prone position on the board and then PADDLES his way back up into the pocket! Like Dennis pointed out, 100 feet or so, of boat travel...he litterally had the whole boat cheering GO GO GO! That was a feat. He was detrmined to not let us WIN!

you guys should make sure theres room for everyone to surf...

Jeff, what boards are you and your son riding this year? How do you like them?

Hey Mike, if you what you mean by make room is make more time, we (the AWSA) don't control that. Certainly, your concern is heard and shared. The NorCal INT League folks slotted us 1.5 hours and that's ALL the time we had. We have talked with Chuck and he has indicated that he will consider giving us two hours. As you no doubt are aware, the lake is scheduled with so much activity it's hard to find the 1.5 hours. Even if we do get two hours (or even 6), we will still be faced with some maximum number of riders that we can handle. Hopefully we fill every slot, and not go over...but to be sure you get to ride, the best thing to do is get there early and signup. The folks we turned away were those that came to sign up "last minute". Sign up before noon and there will be a place to ride in the contest. It takes us some amount of time to slot the riders in the boats and make sure we have a pretty equal amount of "people ballast" in each boat that goes out, PLUS figuring the number of goofy and regular stanced riders so that we can equally divide the riders. Personally, I am of the opinion that this is such a young and dynamic sport, we are LUCKY to have the time at all. As I've said, this is the FIRST EVER wakesurfing series in existence. No other club in the country even gives the sport credibility. Thanks for your input Mike, I do appreciate it and hopefully in the remainder of the series, everyone gets to ride.

Hey Bryan, we both ride Walker Project boards. I'm on the F-18 and James is riding the Bullet. Although the last time out we spent a great deal of time on a Calibrated pintail. James loves his ride, so do I for that matter. The only thing to remember is that they are contest specific boards. They dent and ding easily and we replace them every season...in fact, I always have a backup board for James when we travel just in case it gets broken, which can happen. Contrast that to something like a Calibrated or Trick Boardz where you can drop thm off the boat in the parking lot without creating a problem. Do that with our Walker Project boards and they are toast.

Jeff,

Your group did a great good job with the event this past weekend. My kids and all the new wakesurfers are looking forward to the next comp on June 17th. I hope to have more time slots for the comp next time.

Thanks Chuck, we really appreciated the opportunity and realize that there are only so many hours in the day. I know you'll give due consideration to adding more time. Again, thanks for adding this series to your event.

Jeff
i just thought that you guys had more time because practice was the only thing going on all day saturday at the wakeboard lake. i tried to sign up early online but you can only sign up for a membership and not the event. i was up at shasta all morning practicing, i could have came earlier but i figured that there would be enough spots/time for everyone because that was the only event saturday except practice. thanks for trying to get more time and ill surf the next event.

Hey Mike, I'll make sure we save you a spot. Regular or goofy? and do you need to borrow a board? Thanks for understanding and making an effort to attend. We all look forward to seeing you there.

Jeff
thanks for saving a spot. im a goffy rider and i have my own board. thanks

hey Jeff and crew, thanks so much for putting together the wake surfing comp! I had a lot of fun! I thought it was cool to see Jerry paddling to get up on the wave after he fell. It was fun to hang out with new friends on the boat, while watching surfing. I was happy to win a trophy. I liked the surfer guy on a wave. Thanks for making it so fun! Oh yeah and I like the pics too!

Shawna! What a pleasant surprize to hear from you. Thanks for taking the time to give me your feedback and for the props. You and your sister really ripped. The two of you deserved those trophies. I am glad that you had a good time and I do hope we'll see you again in the remaining contests. I appreciate your comment on the trophies, we will have to make sure we get those for the remainder of the contests. We were discussing them. Again, thank you, Shawna, for your kind words, and for entering the contest.

(Message edited by surfdad on May 23, 2006)

Hey Jeff,

You guys did a fantastic job with the comp. Josh will certainly enjoy his new board- he can't wait to try it out. We're looking forward to the next comp. Thanks so much for the effort that you and your crew put into the event. You guys added to the success of the whole weekend. It was a great weekend overall. and the good news is that I think that each one will be better than the last. Thanks Again. Great pics by the way.

Good morning Peter, first things first, PLEASE apologize to Josh, I misspelled his last name in the standings and now I can't edit it! I also wanted to tell you what a polite young man you have there. His expression of gratitude for winning the Xtreme Board Company Fish, was heart warming.

One of the things I took away from the event was this sense of "family." Thank you for your kind words and for making us all feel welcome within your event. Can't wait to join you folks again for the next event...and you're right, it was a great weekend.

A few more pictures I thought people might enjoy:

Who's going to win all the stuff!?

No worries for young Mr. Payton.

More ripping about to happen.

Hey Jeff-

Thanks for the kind words. No worries on the name misspelling. You'd be amazed at how some people butcher Twelker.

Peter

I have to admit that looks fun, I'm going to have to give that a shot sometime. I need to hookup with someone who has a board. I'm new to California, I live in SF, my boat is in Alameda and I would like to find some good places to go ride. I wakeboard and wakeskate, but i would love to try to surf next. I think I can do that.

Hey Leroy, we have several boards available for folks at the contests. Models from Shred Stixx, Inland Surfer, Calibrated Wakesurfing, the Walker Project and Trick Boardz. We'd love to have you compete.

No worries?

Did you speak like that before the Moomba Jamboree?

Keep it up. Helps with product recognition.

No Ed, the trip to Florida caused my speech patterns and vocabulary to change dramatically! In fact, now I can say: GATOR!

Check our press release!

http://www.wakeworld.com/getarticle.asp?articleid=743

Thank you Dave!

Checkout our preliminary site to keep track of all the happenings with the NorCal INT League Wakesurfing series.

Tons of PROPS to Sean of Entrust for his mad skills with web design.

http://wakesurfseries.com/

Just a reminder, stop 2 is this weekend! I do believe that we'll be drawing from the entrants to win an Inland Surfer Orange Phlegm (I do love typing that ). Not to mention the trophies and swag from Entrust Clothing.