Team Twangled riders Gary Burtka and Greg Brock finish 8th and 10th at the IJSBA World Finals of Pro Freestyle.
What a ride. The trip to Havasu is about 4000 miles round trip from Chicago. It is also countless hours of wrenching on jetskis to get ready for two days of competition. We arrived at Havasu on Thursday. We wanted to be sure to catch the amature freestyle on Friday. After that we headed off to practice. That is when we discovered that we were both suffering from runaway engine syndrome. This forced us back to camp to try and figure out what was wrong. After changing carbs and tweeking until we were blue in the face we found ourselves behind the eight ball. Tomarrow was qualify for position in a one minute run. Gary would manage to get his XFT jetski to run well enough to qualify. I was forced to ride my Wamiltons backup jetski. Though my Wammer boat is one of my favorits it is set up to do shows and not for competition.(slightly under powered and set up for hood tricks and foutains not realy for big air and back flips) Our mechanic was at a quad race and would not be in until Sunday morning. Martin Mareno From Madman Engineering would finaly figure out that we were missing a crank seal that is only found on the stroker style engines. For me it was to late. With the help of some new found friends I did manage to put the motor from my Wamiltons ski (777 RIVA flat top) into my XFT hull, but this would leave me no time to practice on the new ski set up. Madman would find a way to seal Garys crank with electrical tape. It held up just long enough for Gary to pull an awsome back flip off the double up wave that wowd the crowd and helped him to an eigth place finish. I knew I would have to adjust my game plan as my boat would not have the power it needed to perform many of the tricks I had planned to. The water was the roughest I have seen at Havasu. This would prove crucial as the rough conditions would help to level the playing field. My game plan was to stay OFF the hood. Large waves can be very unpredictable. Though my run was not one to wright home about the strategy would pay off as riders were all having their share of problems. I felt fortunate to skweak by Jerimy Parr who was also riding an unfamilar boat he made the error of stuffing the boat upside down causing him to finsh his run on a dead ski. Though it was entertaining it would not get him in the top ten this year. I will have to say that all in all Gary and I had a great time. We want to thank all that helped. Sergio Bueno producer of the XFT hulls we were riding was very excited to see his boats in the world finals. We have already started to make plans for next year. Hope you will be there too!
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