|
 If
you've ever been in Michigan during the spring season, you know that the
weather is unpredictable. One day the temperature will be 75-80 degrees,
and then the next day will be High 30’s to low 50’s. May 1, 2004 was
one of those “cold” days, and our dad decided that we should drive
over to Grand Rapids to ski in Scott Lockwood’s annual April Fools
Barefoot Endurance/Trick competition.
At first, my brother and I are lying in bed, sound asleep,
and my dad runs in asking us if we want to go to Scott’s Race? We look
out the widow, and it is raining. We said "forget about it, we’re
going back to bed". An hour later we got back up to check the
weather, and my dad got a call from Scott asking if we were coming or
not. We said no, but then a half hour later we called back saying we
were on the way. We drove 2 hours and finally made it there. We were
amazed to see that 20 other skiers had already made the journey out to
the river, and the tournament had already started.
 Scott
Lockwood holds the Barefoot Endurance/Trick competition on his local
river in Grand Rapids Michigan. How it works is you get pulled around a
course, in front of his house, in an oval pattern. Every second you
stand skiing is worth one point. During your run, each skier is allowed
to do tricks. Each trick is awarded a certain amount of points in
relation to the time points. For example, a toe start is 150, a toe hold
is 35, and a tumble turn is 25 points each. You take the points from the
time skiing and the points awarded to you form the tricks performed
while skiing and add them together. The tournament skiers were also
broken down into two different divisions. Division one was the pro
division, and that was any skier that competes at Nationals, and
Division two was for more of the recreational barefooters or entry
level.
The tournament ran real smooth, and skiers were posting some
awesome times. John Coretti had posted a strong time of 340 points to
take the lead early on. Mark Andrews also posted a good time one point
off of John with 339 to hold the top positions in the pro division. Thor
was going good, but he fell attempting a trick, but he already had a lot
of points so he ended with a good score. Our dad and us didn’t ski
until last because we arrived to the tournament a bit late. Chris was
the first of us to ski, and he just kept going and going around the
oval. He almost made 5 laps, which would have been a new course record.
He messed up his tumbles some, but had enough points to take second be
hind Scott Lockwood, who skied a strong 524 points. Chris ended up with
491 points overall. After Chris went, Al went. Having the pressure form
Chris skiing really well, he had to do a lot of tricks to beat Chris and
Scott’s final scores. He started off well doing a lot of tricks, and
actually made it around the course a total of 5 times to set the new
course record. He also had enough points in tricks to beat Scott’s
overall score of 524, with 691. This was the highest score Scott had
ever seen. Finally the last skier of the group was our dad. He had and
impressive run too, but lacked in the trick points, so his score
didn’t jump as much as the others. He finished out with 320 points.
Overall this was a really great tournament, and was well
worth going to, even though we almost didn’t. The prizes were great,
and came from Ron Scarpa’s Ski School. Nice book bags were given to
the winners, and stadium seats and license plates were also given out as
well. We got lots of comments about our new Eagle barefoot suits.
Everyone really likes them. Even though it was one of the coldest days
we have ever skied without a dry suit, we can’t wait for next year’s
April Fools Barefoot Endurance/Trick competition to roll around once
more.
Al and Chris Morrison |
