First Weekly Pre World Finals Update (One Of Four)- Featuring Blake’s Corner
IJSBA is pleased to bring you the first of four updates that will lead us to the opening of the 2013 Hot Products World Finals. In exactly four weeks from today, the gates will open and competitors will come in for the 32nd installment of the greatest racing on the planet.IJSBA.com It is an exciting and stressful time in the office as we try to tie up all the loose ends to make the program a great event for all of you. As always, it is a great thing to see so many new names join the regular competitors challenging for this year’s set of World Championships. We look forward to bringing you another great World Finals and will have a few fun surprises over the next three updates. Please share the following news with your friends and colleagues in the PWC Racing Family.Everyone is in Pacific City for the Blowsion Surf Slam as this is being typed. Well, probably not everyone, but, a lot of names you have known in the sport for years are wandering around the beach watching the very best of Freedriding. All day, big air jumps, backflips, barrel rolls, and nose stabs all took place in front of a healthy amount of shoreline of spectators.The Blowsion Surf Slam is part of the triad of events that close each year’s PWC season with a bang (Surf Slam, World Finals, and Kings Cup in case you were wondering). If you haven’t been, it is one of the lifetime must-do’s if you are truly going to be part of the PWC experience. The event takes place in Pacific City, Oregon the weekend after each Labor Day. The drive, alone, is worth the effort to get to the event. No matter which way approach Pacific city you will get to see some of the Northwest’s most beautiful trees and rural scenery (you will have plenty of time to take it all in because the Portland area also appears to have Oregon’s worse and painfully slowest drivers). Welcoming small towns and unspoiled beaches are your surroundings and it is not until you descend over a crest that drops you into Tierra Del Mar and, instantly, you find an oasis of PWC heaven. The beach was packed and the ambiance was the finest seen at any event.John Dady and his crew really pull out the stops each year to make the Surf Slam really something special. Carol Anne Stinson, manages time and scoring of the Freeride competitors and makes the event run smoothly (she is the same time and continuity manager that handles World Finals, by the way). Water safety was managed by Loren Nordyke and his very attentive crew. The site is well planned and allows for easy flow for parking and pitting just adjacent to the vendor and announcing area. Veteran Freeriders: Mike Serlin and Ross Champion joined Jimbeau Andrews and Carl Gramberg as judges. Randy Laine donned a wetsuit and charged the waves reminding most of us on the shore that, even in old age, he is a better surfrider than anyone else on the beach.K&S Kuwait, Jet Lift, Jettribe, Skat-Trak, PayPros, Cold Fusion, Worx, Riva, Hertz Equipment, Gasket Technology, and Jetski Club of Russia headlined the contributors that all made this wonderful event a success for 2013.Kevin Redinger is recovering well and will be able to join us (as a spectator of course) at the 2013 Hot Products World Finals. He will be present to support his son David’s challenge for a world title (or two). Although things are looking up for Kevin’s health, medical bills, wages, and other difficulties persist. IJSBA reminds you that we still have a couple of opportunities to enjoy some extra World Finals perks like early pit entry, front of the line privileges for registration, extra pit passes, VIP hospitality passes, pro pits, banner packages, and more. We have donates many of these to benefit the Redinger family. Minimum donations are $100. Please email scott@ijsba.com, directly, to find out how you can help one of your PWC family members while scoring some awesome benefits for yourself.Vendor Rules. We have to be a wet blanket, here, and remind the community of the rules for vending products and services at the trade show portion of the World Finals. Many of these rules are set by the city (and county) and are not solely the product of the heavy handed, evil, coin counting, cold hearted sanctioning body that will surely be taken to task on the internet in the immediate weeks after the World Finals. Sorry to digress for a moment there. Anyway, here is the deal: the people that are vending at World Finals are making an investment in the event. This investment helps keep the costs down (yes, I know what you are thinking, but, nobody is denying that participating in the World Finals is not cheap by any means, but the costs to the competitors would be exponentially greater if you were not getting vendor and sponsor support) and it is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that the vendors investing in your World Championship are getting treated fairly. Please observe the following rules in place at all times at the property of Crazy Horse Campgrounds and Resort during the World Finals:
No vending outside of the designated vendor/exhibitor area: including both the pits and the camping areas of Crazy Horse. Vending may be made by authorized persons in the vendor area only.
All vendors must have a valid sales permit issued by the City of Lake Havasu.
Products in a vendor space must only be the products produced and labeled by the registered name of that vendor space. There is no subletting of booth space. There is only one product brand per booth without written permission from IJSBA.
The following products may not be sold at World Finals without written permission from IJSBA: food, beverages, sunglasses, safety glasses, goggles, ice cream, snow cones, coffee, bottled water, tea, vitamin supplements, energy bars, health products, energy drinks, any product bearing the logo of AP Designs USA, cleaning products, PWC totes, any clothing that depicts “World Finals,” “World Championships,” “Lake Havasu City,” or the year 2013.
The trade show portion of the World Finals really is a wonderful place where you will find numerous new and exciting products (except the ones above we just told you couldn’t be sold). There will be a lot of revolutionary items displayed this year and you don’t want to miss it.Hot Products has had some extra meetings in the office to discuss ways the World Finals can be an even greater success. We want to do the same for them. Please be sure to list Hot Products on all of social media profiles as well as signature comments in all of those great internet forum posts you like to make (sorry, almost starting digressing again). When you talk with your non-racing friends, be sure to let them know all that Hot Products does to support racing. Also, they also streamline distribution so that manufacturers of aftermarket parts can produce their wares more effectively and they can reach consumers at lower prices. It is not only important that we spread the news about Hot Products in the race community, but we need to let the entire sport know what Hot Products does to make things better for the watercraft world as a whole. More parts sold and circulated means that things are better off for the product producers which means they can be more generous for event sponsorship which means lower prices for competitors.No drones or other airborne devices may be flown over Crazy Horse Campgrounds or over the permitted race area. The entire airspace immediately above the World Finals permitted area, and Crazy Horse Campgrounds, is reserved for IJSBA’s officially contracted air support vehicles.Kawasaki has unveiled their new product like for 2014. It looks like Kawasaki is also going after the coveted Stock Class titles by upping the horsepower rating to 310 for the Ultra line of PWC. The Ultra 310 R is undoubtedly designated for racing as it has a couple of pounds shaved off from the other model lines. Even more interesting is the built in audio system. If you win the King’s Cup Stock Class, on an Ultra 300R, next year, you can play their customary sound clip of Queen’s ‘We are the champions’ well before you get to the podium at awards. It is really great to see another manufacturer stepping up to focus on a race specific model.Pit entrance and pit parking is first come, first served for competitors who have checked in at registration and have received their parking sticker. Each vehicle/trailer combo may take up one RV parking area in racer pits. Pit spaces for racers coming later may not be reserved. Any tents, tape, or other markers that are placed before the pits open will be removed by IJSBA. The Pro pit areas are reserved for groups that come with event sponsors or are part of the IJSBA staging crew. Pro pit spaces and other premium reserved opportunities may still be available. Please contact IJSBA for more information.Discounted entry until September 16, 2013. That’s exactly one more week as of the time of this posting. IJSBA offers discounted entry fees as an incentive to help us streamline scheduling ahead of the event. After September 16, regular entry fee rates apply. After September 30, registration will close until we open registration on-site. On site registration takes several bodies to complete and frequently requires rescheduling and reorganizing of the race order- this is why there is a per class on-site fee. Please avoid this surcharge by registering early with a complete and valid form of payment.IJSBA is pleased to present “Blake’s Corner.” Blake’s Corner is a new addition to the pre World Finals updates where Race Director, Blake Corning, can keep us all updated as to how the venue is coming together. Blake was present at Surf Slam and was able to go over some notes and sketches for World Finals and to share the following statements:
This first segment of Blake’s Corner comes just before I leave for Lake Havasu. This is to let you know what the plan is and what are the first steps in setting up the event. The first thing I do when getting ready for World Finals is to go through everything in the trailer to make sure nothing has been damaged or deteriorated from last year. I check all of this first so we still have almost a month to replace anything that needs it.
Next we will finalize the draft of the track and I will count out the buoys and prepare them for placement and make sure we have enough extras to cover any buoys that get damaged. We do this per section. This year’s track is going to be a lot different because we took a lot of input on what all of you want to see next and we have made a track that does this. Mostly, longer splits.
After the track plan is set, banners start showing up and I will take top sponsor banners over to Gary and Kelly at Jettrim who will stitch them to be placed over the large inflatable sausage shaped logs that we use to divide the splits. Then tents will start to arrive and I will have to meet with DSM arrange all of the tent placement for the tech staff and line staging. I will also meet with them to assist in placing the fencing. Jim Russell and Harold are great to work with.
After all this is done, it will be getting close to October 1 and we will get the cinder blocks and chain delivered on the beach. This is when the course will actually be set up. I get a lot of help from Jeff Trogner, Cory Rarick, Runkel, and Dave and Jake Zier help me out with a lot of that. This is also the when T&B brings the grandstands and I can mark the starting gate. I have worked with T&B for years including on the PGA tour and other events around the US. They do a good job. Mike Root will come in next and start setting up the banners on the grandstands and around the site.
Then, I will meet with the Crazy Horse staff, to see if there is any new things we need to make sure we handle this year. Gary, Jackie, and Harold are always very helpful and have been great to work with all of these years.
As race director, this year, I am going to spend more time on watching for people not holding their lines and making sure we call out jump starts because this is something you guys have asked to have more attention.
So, I hope this gives you an idea of what it takes to do this job and for us to get this event going. I thank everyone who helps me get all of this done. I also thank everyone who is supporting the event.
Well, that concludes the first pre World Finals update for 2013. Please check ijsba.com at least once daily because a lot of new information is going to be posted online frequently. If you have any questions or comments about this update, or about the World Finals in general, then please call +1-714-751-8695 or email info@ijsba.com.Ps- no time to proofread between Surf Slam and heading out to Orlando for the Sea-Doo press release… I will try to fix embarrassing typos and grammar mistakes later.[fblike]
IJSBA.com It is an exciting and stressful time in the office as we try to tie up all the loose ends to make the program a great event for all of you. As always, it is a great thing to see so many new names join the regular competitors challenging for this year’s set of World Championships. We look forward to bringing you another great World Finals and will have a few fun surprises over the next three updates. Please share the following news with your friends and colleagues in the PWC Racing Family.Everyone is in Pacific City for the Blowsion Surf Slam as this is being typed. Well, probably not everyone, but, a lot of names you have known in the sport for years are wandering around the beach watching the very best of Freedriding. All day, big air jumps, backflips, barrel rolls, and nose stabs all took place in front of a healthy amount of shoreline of spectators.The Blowsion Surf Slam is part of the triad of events that close each year’s PWC season with a bang (Surf Slam, World Finals, and Kings Cup in case you were wondering). If you haven’t been, it is one of the lifetime must-do’s if you are truly going to be part of the PWC experience. The event takes place in Pacific City, Oregon the weekend after each Labor Day. The drive, alone, is worth the effort to get to the event. No matter which way approach Pacific city you will get to see some of the Northwest’s most beautiful trees and rural scenery (you will have plenty of time to take it all in because the Portland area also appears to have Oregon’s worse and painfully slowest drivers). Welcoming small towns and unspoiled beaches are your surroundings and it is not until you descend over a crest that drops you into Tierra Del Mar and, instantly, you find an oasis of PWC heaven. The beach was packed and the ambiance was the finest seen at any event.John Dady and his crew really pull out the stops each year to make the Surf Slam really something special. Carol Anne Stinson, manages time and scoring of the Freeride competitors and makes the event run smoothly (she is the same time and continuity manager that handles World Finals, by the way). Water safety was managed by Loren Nordyke and his very attentive crew. The site is well planned and allows for easy flow for parking and pitting just adjacent to the vendor and announcing area. Veteran Freeriders: Mike Serlin and Ross Champion joined Jimbeau Andrews and Carl Gramberg as judges. Randy Laine donned a wetsuit and charged the waves reminding most of us on the shore that, even in old age, he is a better surfrider than anyone else on the beach.K&S Kuwait, Jet Lift, Jettribe, Skat-Trak, PayPros, Cold Fusion, Worx, Riva, Hertz Equipment, Gasket Technology, and Jetski Club of Russia headlined the contributors that all made this wonderful event a success for 2013.Kevin Redinger is recovering well and will be able to join us (as a spectator of course) at the 2013 Hot Products World Finals. He will be present to support his son David’s challenge for a world title (or two). Although things are looking up for Kevin’s health, medical bills, wages, and other difficulties persist. IJSBA reminds you that we still have a couple of opportunities to enjoy some extra World Finals perks like early pit entry, front of the line privileges for registration, extra pit passes, VIP hospitality passes, pro pits, banner packages, and more. We have donates many of these to benefit the Redinger family. Minimum donations are $100. Please email scott@ijsba.com, directly, to find out how you can help one of your PWC family members while scoring some awesome benefits for yourself.Vendor Rules. We have to be a wet blanket, here, and remind the community of the rules for vending products and services at the trade show portion of the World Finals. Many of these rules are set by the city (and county) and are not solely the product of the heavy handed, evil, coin counting, cold hearted sanctioning body that will surely be taken to task on the internet in the immediate weeks after the World Finals. Sorry to digress for a moment there. Anyway, here is the deal: the people that are vending at World Finals are making an investment in the event. This investment helps keep the costs down (yes, I know what you are thinking, but, nobody is denying that participating in the World Finals is not cheap by any means, but the costs to the competitors would be exponentially greater if you were not getting vendor and sponsor support) and it is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that the vendors investing in your World Championship are getting treated fairly. Please observe the following rules in place at all times at the property of Crazy Horse Campgrounds and Resort during the World Finals: