Footstock Day 1

Our 2005 Footstock experience couldn't have been better.  We knew what to expect this year so we were able to set up and start enjoying the festivities faster.  Gary Mueller and Jay Schaefer had the site all prepared waiting on us to show up with the BFC bus.  Jay was a great help getting us hooked up with power and plenty of extension cords.  

This year we brought more of our Promo Team, several top 3-event skiers, and some great endurance racers with us.  Several skiers who had never skied Footstock before.  We had Keith St. Onge, Bill Brzoza, Mike Salber, Stuart Singer, Kyle Fahrenthold, Dave Slemp, Tony Buoniauto, Michele Gleason and myself (Chuck) in attendance.  

Tony B and Bill Brzoza are from the Connecticut/Rhode Island area, while Keith, Mike, and Dave are from Florida; and Kyle, Stuart, Michele and I are all from Texas. We all had a great time catching up with all the top Figure-8 footers like Aaron Schoelzel, Bob Mahnke, Chris Van Zeeland, the Heller family, Bucky Dailey, Dan Cardinal, Rob Christiansen, Jim Casper, Luke, Gordo and many many others. 

Day 1 started with a skiers meeting where they review the tournament schedule, answer questions about the rules, review the start procedures, the coin flip, speeds, etc...  2005 had over 150 competitors, so they decided to run 3 boats.  That meant the time between runs would be shorter and the water would be busier.  It was a constant flow of skiers coming and going from the starting dock.  Day 1 is all about making it to the finals.  The top seeds only ski once or twice depending on if the have a by or not.  It's the unknowns, or first timers, that have if rough.  They may loose to a top seed in their first run, then have to spend the rest of the day (skiing 6-8 times) competing in the loser's bracket just to make it to the finals.

Footstock has a lot of craziness associated with it.  It's a very competitive atmosphere, but the organizers make sure to pack it with plenty of fun.  The announcer, Dave Mueller, doesn't let anyone get passed him without a bit of ribbing.  Dave knows all the footers, knows the history of the event, and makes sure to give all the out-of-town guys plenty of grief if they beat a local favorite.  If you fall early, he always thanks you for their entry fee.  It's all done in good fun, but if you can't take a good ribbing, or have a good laugh, don't bother coming.  This year Team Barefoot Central was the focus of the ribbing.  When Stuart Singer went down early, Dave started proclaiming we should take his picture off the cargo trailer.  When I fell early, he said I should kick myself off the bus.  He kept a running tally of how many BFC members had been kicked out of the competition.  We had to keep reminding him that Aaron Schoelzel was on our team and he was our ace in the hole.

A fun idea event organizer Gary Mueller came up with this year was the pink shirt.  He had a bunch of pink shirts made up that said "I Got Beat by a Girl at Footstock" on the front of them.  He was predicting that Elaine and Shannon Heller would take down several of the guys, so he wanted to make it doubly embarrassing for the guys if it happened.  And it happened quite a bit.  Terry Schuler, Paul Stokes, and Bucky Daily, just to name a few of the guys that where walking around in pink shirts.

The event was running so smoothly and on schedule, so Gary Mueller came up with an idea of selling raffle tickets for the opportunity to shoot a paint pellet gun at a couple footers as they skied past the dock.  But to accomplish this, he had to find two suckers willing to get shot at.  So BarefootCentral.com put up some nice prizes for anyone willing to get shot at.  It didn't take long.  Eric Friedle and Michael Brasher stepped up.  Eric and Michael had come to Footstock to promote Mike's new website, but weren't skiing for whatever reason, so they must have figured it was a chance to get their feet wet.  Since Brasher's mission in life over the last year has been to put BarefootCentral.com out of business, I took the opportunity to make a sizable donation to the raffle, thus guaranteeing myself one of the guns.  Friedle was also a hot target.  After taking a job with BarefootCentral.com only weeks earlier and skiing for our Cup Series Team in Moline, he decided he'd rather move back home with mom and dad and then showed up promoting Brasher's website.  Mike, Keith, Billy and the rest of the team didn't think too highly of that, so I secured a second gun and a football for Salber to throw at them.  I don't think Eric and Mike actually thought we would hit them.  But they also didn't figure the physics behind them skiing at us 40 mph and the paint ball coming at them at about 60 mph.  The result was a huge welt under Michael's arm, and a satisfied shooter.  It was all in fun and the boys took it well.  We'd invite them back anytime they want to be moving targets again.

We also had some extra time to do some photo shoots.  We sent Dave Meuller on a mission to find all the hot girls at Footstock, and he did not disappoint. Enjoy!

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This year, several of us (Mike, Stuart, Kyle, and I) decided to enter both the Open and Senior divisions.  We figured we traveled over a 1200 miles to get there, we were going to get our money's worth, and that we did.  I went down early in both the Open and Senior divisions and spent the rest of the day skiing about every 15 minutes.  I'd get out of the boat from one heat and have to walk to the front of the line to ski against my next competitor in the other division.   Back and forth all day long.  I had one more person to beat in the both the open and senior divisions to make the finals and ended up missing my step-off twice, once in senior and once in open.  Talk about a kick in the ass.  All I heard was Dave thanking me for my entry fee.  Half of me was totally pissed at myself, and the other half was very thankful because I didn't have to worry about skiing the next day and could really enjoy the evening.

To our surprise, Mike Salber skied all day in both Senior and Open and was undefeated.  He was skiing better than ever.  Then when they decided to finish the Senior Division on Saturday so they could concentrate on Open on Sunday, we were all blown away when we saw Salber at the top of the board competing against Footstock legend Jim Casper, who had come in 2nd in Senior's the year before.  Casper was determined not to be the bride's maid again this year.