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Old 12-05-2010, 05:17 PM
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ricki ricki is offline
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Arrow Photos - Red Bull Wake Of Fame Contest

News of a wake competition in the Ft. Lauderdale Swimming Hall Of Fame hit the streets a few days ago. It was sponsored by Red Bull, usually a real big thing with lots of adanced notice, just not this time. The competition was to include well known wakeboarders and wakeskaters. The riders included Red Bull wakeboarders Parks Bonifay, JD Webb, Adam Errington and wakeskater Brian Grubb. Other riders included Nico von Lerchenfeld, Kevin Henshaw, Reed Hansen, Nick Taylor, Andy Pastura, Steel Laferty, Ollie Derome, Keith Lidberg, Shane Bonifay, Ben Horan, and Brandon Thomas. The event was powered by a Sesitec System 2.0 cable tow system.









The venue before the crowds arrive.
Click image for full sized photo






The contestants and some of the organization




It filled in eventually.




The wakeboarders usually opened by jumping and slamming into the Red Bull Gong.




Apologies in advance, it has been sometime since I have had to shoot fairly distant fast moving subjects in low light. Result, out of focus images in many cases. Need to get some more up to date camera gear for this sort of thing.




Red Bull had some team riders in the competition both on wakeboards and wakeskates.




Kiters John, Nicci, Pete and Hamish in the back




The wakeskaters would launch off kickers at the west end of the pool.




The wakeskaters were pretty amazing, no bindings, just friction and gravity to keep them close enough to the board to recover from some pretty interesting moves.




Quite a few local kiters showed up including Andy Hurdman and Megan, a personal trainer. Andy passed along some big news, he recently co-stared in a TV series on kiteboarding with episodes shot all over. Stay tuned for more on that!








A fairly rare in focus action shot, gonging on to the course. The way you do this is to stand close, too close, to the pool and gong. Some of the guys kicked up a pretty big spray on landing which naturally slammed into photographers trying to get those special shots.









The sophisticated Nicci look, looking good!




Lots of focus, getting ready to hit it.




There was this interesting backstop, kicker like thing at the east end of the pool. The blue kicker on the right allowed the boarders to burn off speed pretty effectively. Often a bit too effectively with a number landing head first on the kicker after riding up it.




A head first landing on the way. Some hit HARD, you could hear the "thunk" a good distance away. Good they are required to wear lids for the competition. They actually ground out a divot or something someone's head, perhaps board may have made in this surface during the competition. Kiters are much smarter to hit equipment without any helmets, because ... can't think of any justification. That practice will likely result in some avoidable injuries.













Spectators



Using a large corrugated plastic culvert as a slider.





Had a lot of impressive recoveries although not always!








Impressive footwork off the kicker








Impressive athletes!





More spectators





JD Webb works on levitation











Wakeskate winners








The wakeboard winners


You can checkout some unprocessed video clips of the action at:

http://www.facebook.com/v/459753843198
http://www.facebook.com/v/459760228198
http://www.facebook.com/v/459763068198




Heading out




A bunch of kiters threw a party at the Treasure Trove just across the street.





Pete, Hamish and Matt hanging out




Jessie, Graham and the crew. Jesse has an epic event going off on Rum Cay in the Bahamas within the week! Kiting, surfing, SUP, diving, even sky diving around all that insanely clear blue water.





See you from the Ft. Lauderdale Swimming Hall of Fame, it's been fun!
Click image for full sized photo


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transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

Last edited by ricki; 12-06-2010 at 08:45 AM.
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