GK

I agree that no run-off was disappointing. I understand the time constraints, but until we're giving the audience something enjoyable to watch, slalom will continue to be somewhat boring. A run-off would have been enjoyable to watch, especially knowing Mapple would have been in the mix.

I'm not sure why a zero ball is necessary either. Why do we need skiers to start on the left side of the wakes. We all know that in deep shortline the optimal path would be to start on the left and ski approximately through the gates so nothing is going to change there. How many more collegiate skiers could be getting a good start at 26 mph and running some buoys if the gates weren't in the equation? What's wrong with pulling out wide and early for 1 ball? Scoring doesn't have to change. Like someone said, you get NO points for going through the gates, so why make it a requirement? Don't change the course, just allow a skier to start their run at the point they feel is optimal for them. I just don't see the downside.

@Horton - Yeah, I'm just an excel hack.

Sent.

Not bad for a rookie Horton, but I could have saved you a lot of time! hahaha See attached spreadsheet. The "Slalom Input" tab is where you enter your scores and the "Head-to-Head" tab is where you fill out the brackets. Just type in the name of the winner in the brackets and it automatically updates their average for that round and their score. This spreadsheet has been used for a dozen plus different Buckeye Buoy Tour formats. We get a big screen TV and display the brackets live throughout the day so people always know where they stand. This spreadsheet is for a true head-to-head from round 1 on, but I have lots of variations for different formats. If anyone is interested in putting on one of these fun format tournaments just give me a shout and I'll be happy to get you what you need and walk you through the spreadsheet. At some point I do have visions of updating it so it's very user friendly because more and more people across the country are using it. gk at rounding6.com

Just a shout out to my alma mater, the University of Cincinnati. They qualified and competed in D-I without one single skier who could run the slalom course, trick ski, or land a jump prior to coming to the University of Cincinnati. That's good team building!

We use a very similar handicapping structure to Than for our Buckeye Buoy Tour. Go to www.skiowsa.com and click on Buckeye Buoy Tour for more details. Contact me if you have any questions. gk at rounding6.com

I think most judges THINK that the ruling should be 1/4 buoy as soon as you break the plain of the buoy line (as someone mentioned above) but that is not the case as clearly shown on Page 94 of the AWSA rulebook. I think a 1/4 buoy is most common when a skier is running late, throws their ski out around the buoy landing on their side before the ski even has a chance to arc back across the buoy line.

I'll be at Midwest Regionals Friday afternoon through Sunday morning if any of you Midwest skiers want to learn more about these fun formats that we use. I helped Indiana get their Buoy Tour started this year and I'm happy to help any other states that are interested. Just reply here or shoot me an email gk at rounding6.com. Remember, all of our formats are run as Class C so they're good for novice through deep shortline.

BBT Stop #2 is FULL. 48 skiers, Head-to-Head w/loser's bracket down to a 15 skier final where they'll spin it to win it one pass below their average. Should be a good time!

Details of the finals are on the front page. It was a lot of fun and it's funny that @AB, @ScarletArrow, and I all ended up on the same team. Stop #2 format... "Spin It to Win It".

Yeah, we encouraged Indiana to model their tour as closely to ours as possible so that in the future we can potentially have some cross-over events. Any states interested in setting up something similar are welcome to contact me and I'll download you on everything you need! I'm on my way to the first BBT stop right now and heading over to Indiana on Saturday night to help them get their's kicked off. Look for the results on Ball of Spray next week!

Malibu TXi or LXi with a wedge and tower. Come up with an easy option (such as a fat seat) to put extra weight in the boat for the boarders and everyone should be happy.

Gary, the tour will be in your neck of the woods at the end of August in Youngstown, OH. Should be fun, hope to meet you there.

Memories of Lucille are being posted at www.skiowsa.com if anyone would like to contribute or read more comments.

Great video. Love the non-stop action and voice-over. Until we get back on TV, that's the way to bring skiing to the masses!

Than, I think you could actually do a better job of comparing skiers. The best skiers are going to run 36 mph which could be translated across all age divisions. Those who feel 36 is too fast would ski 34 mph like they already are but still have the opportunity to compete with those who choose to go 36. I think it simplifies scoring because your buoy count chart now has 2 columns instead of about 10 columns for all the different divisions.

Get rid of maximum speeds in all divisions. Make it 36 for all men and 34 for all women and let the skier decide what speed they want to max out at. Then the skier can decide what speed is best for them. Maybe it's 36, maybe it's 32? You could be a newer skier to the sport and run into 28 off at 30 mph if you'd want and could be scored accordingly. I don't see a negative.

I have suggested in the past that they add a few more discount options also. They have the discount option already for Junior and Club Members. It would be nice if they added the same for Collegiate, Chief Officials, and Promo Boats. We set our base prices, then we give a 10% discount to ALL officials with a rating, a 35% discount on Juniors, and a 50% discount to club members. Chief Officials who are comped you have to go in and manually mark as paid. If you have other discounts (like collegiate), it is pretty easy through PayPal to refund that person a portion of their entry fee. It just adds an extra step that could probably be avoided with more discount options.

You can turn a good slalom boat into a decent wakeboard boat, it's much tougher to turn a wakeboard boat into a decent slalom boat. I've owned a lot of Response LXi's with Tower & Wedge. World class slalom boat and a solid wakeboard boat with the wedge and a fat seat (or a few people) in the back.

We worked it out from an insurance standpoint so that skiers could cross-over events without having to buy a membership with the other organization. Obviously your scores didn't qualify you towards anything without becoming a member, but at least you got to ski some more. My only suggestion would be to try and encourage cross-polination so that skiers can experience both organizations and ultimately hopefully they'll participate in both and bring skiers from both organizations together. That's what we were trying to do in Ohio is bring ALL skiers in the State together on one day for the State Championships so that we could spark new relationships and expand everyone's opportunity for more ski partners and more water time. What's left of the INT here in Ohio is primarily wakeboarders. The slalom skiers have mostly jumped ship to AWSA due to our handicapped fun format tournaments that we do with the Buckeye Buoy Tour. The Buckeye Buoy Tour is the best of both worlds, gives skiers a chance to compete based on ability and allows the high end skiers to still compete on a local level and qualify for regional and national events at the same time.

We held a INT/AWSA event same day same lake during our state championship a couple years ago. Some of the AWSA skiers crossed over and skied the INT event. None of the INT skiers crossed over to ski the AWSA event. It was the one and only time we did it. It was disappointing but the two groups just didn't mesh very well.

I've been skiing on an HO Attack since I started the season 3 weeks ago. I'm not back to the full swing of things yet but so far it feels great. Very comfortable binding and you can tweak the bungee laces just right so that you've got good support but your foot will still come out in a fall. I like it so far, no cramping like you get in rubber bindings. Plus the binding is insanely light!

I think Brent makes some good points especially in regards to younger kids who need the "pros" to look up to. On the other hand, the Big Dawg skiers are looked up to equally by a different demographic. Waterskiing is not like other sports where everyone starts at a young age. Many waterskiers today don't learn about competitive waterskiing until they're in their 20's or 30's (especially collegiate skiers). If you don't start running the course until you're 20 or 30, your shot at being a pro skier are OVER however you can aspire to be good enough to compete in the Big Dawg by the time you're 35 or 40. I learned how to run the course when I joined my collegiate ski team. Now I'm 32 and have aspirations of being good enough in a few years to compete in the big dawg events. I've also got to think that if I'm 40 years old and have the opportunity to square off head-to-head against Chris Parrish or Jodi Fisher or any other ex-pro skier at the time it would be awesome! The Big Dawg series gives skiers who came into the sport later in life a chance to compete at an extremely high level. I think the Big Dawg series does what Masters Men was not able to accomplish and the MM division could probably be done away with at this point and Big Dawg events expanded around the country. I do agree with Marcus however that Big Dawg events should not be given the same noteriety as the pro skiers at pro events. If you want to hold a Big Dawg event the day before a pro event then great, but the pros need to be the focus (and I think they have been up to this point). I also think that top speeds for Big Dawg and all divisions should be 36 mph as I've stated in the past but that's a whole different discussion.

I think that ALL divisions should be allowed to ski at 36 mph and skiers should be able to max out at whatever speed they choose knowing that they're losing 6 buoys for every 2 mph. In other words a skier running 38 off @ 32 mph would equal someone at 32 off 36 mph. Ultimately, I think the most elite skiers in the world (no matter what the age) would gravitate to 36 mph because they would need to in order to compete at the highest levels and the second tier skiers would probably mix it up between 34 and 36 mph with more beginner and intermediate skiers possibly maxing out at 30 or 32 mph until they're comfortable with the higher speeds.