For those of you out there who have never had the opportunity to ski in a barefoot endurance race you don’t have any idea what you are missing. I have been skiing in endurance races now for four years and I have been lucky enough to be on some very good teams. Many people that ski in these races feel that they are by far the most exciting aspect of barefoot waterskiing. Most of you have heard of the Dam to Dam race which takes place once a year in Austin, Texas. The D2D started it all, and now there are barefoot races events popping up all over the country.

The Brazos Barefoot Club holds a race of its own each April called the Brazos River Rat Race. It's now in its forth year. The race is still not as big as the Dam to Dam, but it continues to grow year after year. The race takes place on the Brazos River outside of Cleburne, Texas, which is the upper part of Lake Whitney. Teams consist of four or five skiers per boat. Each team puts a skier in at the start, and it is like a relay from there. The footer in the water skis as long as he/she can, and after they fall or let go, the next footer on the team jumps in. The objective is for your team to ski the 20 plus miles of scenic water and get to the finish line first.

On Friday night, April 5^th, the skiers began to show up at the barefoot beach where the pre-race party was taking place. Everyone seemed to be having a good time socializing and discussing the racing that was going to take place the next morning. I was one of the people helping out with the tournament, so I was happy to see that everyone was having a good time. There were several new faces in the crowd including the team that was sponsored by Texas Mastercraft including Richard Talbot, Jeff Shelton and Ed Fletcher. None of these guys had ever skied in a tournament before, so Royal Weisman and Rod Sheppard decided to ski on their team.

Who was there? The hardcore Kansas footers, all of the local footers from the area, and also some very well known footers including: Current world slalom champion Jason Lee, and Team USA member Paul Stokes. Hall of Fame legend Mike Seipel even dropped in to Dallas to give a barefoot clinic before the race. On Friday evening we drew heat assignments out of the hat for the next morning’s race. My team, The Executioners, liked the heat we drew. We were matched up against a tough local team -Team FP3, Team Viagra, and a tough Kansas team in the second heat. The first heat was to include: Team Barefoot Central, Team Scorpion and Team BBC, which was another tough local team.

On Saturday morning our plan was quite simple. We would ski hard and win our heat with the fastest qualifying time so that we would have our choice of lanes on Sunday in the finals. Our team consisted of Jason Lee, Michael Brasher, Nathan Aust and myself. Nathan and Michael are both fairly new to the sport and have improved dramatically in the past year. I was looking forward to skiing with both of them, especially since they were on my team. Our team decided to start Nathan and Mike first and second in the rotation to give them some experience and allow me and Jason to be fresher on Sunday for the big showdown with Barefoot Central consisting of Paul Stokes, Chuck Gleason, Phil Gustafson, Heath Cooper, and Tim Chinody, and the tough Kansas teams.

The conditions on Saturday were not optimal. The water was pretty rough, but it was foot-able for everyone in the race. One thing about a barefoot race is smooth water is never a guarantee, so you have to be prepared for anything.

Two boats would come out of each heat to advance to the finals Sunday morning. We watched heat one start and disappear down the river. We wouldn’t know who advanced until we finished. We thought for sure that Team Barefoot Central and The Scorpions would advance in that order out of heat one, and we were right.

Once the first heat took off, all of the boats in the second heat lined up preparing for the start. Our first skier, Nathan hopped in ready to do battle against his good friend Doug Daniels who was skiing behind the Barefoot Nautique, otherwise known as the tank. We were skiing behind my roommates brand new 2002 Malibu Flightcraft, and with the water conditions the way that they were, we would never get the chance to feel the power of the trimmed up outboard. Team No Pressure was also in our heat and we knew that their rough water abilities were second to none.

As the horn blew we took off and everybody was soon skiing. Nathan had a good run in the rough water putting our team in a good position and allowing Mike to do what he does best, ski through pure hell. Mike did just that, he skied through rollers and serious wind chop. We passed both teams No Pressure and the River Rats to take the lead. Once Mike got in the boat we had a huge lead and it was my turn to take a beating in the chop. I had a pretty good run, which got us out of the chop and finally put us in the semi smooth water. Jason was our last skier in the rotation and he had a good run in the smooth water, doing surface turns and just having a good time. Nathan and Mike both skied one more time which got us really close to the finish. Jason and I both wanted to ski again, so we reached under the seat and grabbed a second rope, and we both skied across the finish line. Everything went perfect for our team and we felt very confident about the next day. Team No Pressure would come in second to advance to the finals.

The rest of the afternoon went well despite the rainstorms and gloomy weather. Everyone had a good time. Many thanks go out to Red Bull for showing up with all the Red Bull we could drink and a monster circus tent which they put up to keep everyone dry. They even supplied blow-up chairs to sit on. The volleyball tournament did not go as planned due to the rain and lack of players but everyone had fun anyway. The Kansas teams stuck it out and endured the weather even in their tents. As the afternoon grew later we had a small volleyball game which grew very competitive.

On Sunday morning, my team woke up feeling good. We were all confident, especially when we looked at the flag and it wasn’t even thinking about moving. I looked at the river and it looked like a sheet of glass, and Jason and I both liked what we saw. As all of the boats finally made their way down to the starting line, the wind began to pick up even more than it had blown the day before. As we reached the start of the race, we decided to shorten the race and not go up into the lake as far because it would be too rough to ski. Trust me, it was rough enough where we started.

The four of us looked at each other trying to decide who would start the race in the horrible conditions. After some discussion we decided that I would start the race due to the fact that I had more experience, even though I hate rough water. There were four teams set to race on Sunday: Team Barefoot Central, No Pressure, The Scorpions, and the Executioners.

Even though it was very rough, I felt confident when I hopped in the water. Though I knew I was skiing against one of the best rough water skiers in the sport, Paul Stokes on Team Barefoot Central. When the horn blew I stood up and after a couple of seconds of skiing I caught a toe from standing up too tall. When I looked up I thought I had just let everyone down after falling so early in a huge race. I was expecting to see three other skiers still skiing but instead I only saw one and sure enough, it was Paul. I couldn’t believe that three of us had fallen within seconds of each other on the start. At this point I was determined to catch Paul so I got up a second time and continued skiing. This time I felt much more solid.

I went for a nice run skiing two or three minutes in some pretty brutal conditions. I eventually fell and when I did I still didn’t have enough to catch Paul. When I got in the boat we were about 30 seconds behind and it stayed that way for the remainder of the race. We fought hard, skiing as far as we could with several transitions in the rough water. We began to catch Team Barefoot Central at the end, but we came in second by 45 seconds. If Barefoot Central had made one small mistake we would have been able to catch them, but they didn’t. Team Barefoot Central had a great race and they deserved and earned the win. I would like to congratulate team Barefoot Central for a job well done. I would also like to say that I am very proud of all my teammates, especially Michael Brasher and Nathan Aust who have made significant improvements in the last year. I look forward to skiing more races with both of these guys. I would also like to thank Jason and Paul for supporting our tournament by being there.

The Brazos Barefoot club would also like to thank all of the skiers that participated in the event. We would also like to thank the sponsors of the tournament, Texas Mastercraft, Waterski America and Red Bull. Also thank you to anyone who helped with the tournament especially my dad, Scott Damuth, for doing all of the cooking and being the one of the tournament directors.

Come check out the races sometime, they are a blast,

Phillip Damuth

Phillip has been on 3 winning teams at The Dam 2 Dam, the pentacle of barefoot racing, 2nd only to Paul Stokes, who has been on 4 winning teams. Phillip is the current Men's 1Overall US National Barefoot Champion, but he most widely known for his incredible endurance skiing ability. Look for Phillip's name to be at the top of the list for the World Endurance Championships here on BarefootCentral.com.

To see more pictures from the event, click on the links below: