I’m anxiously waiting for the Madison lakes to melt so I can get my boat in the water for that first run of the year. The weather hit near 50 here today, which will work some wonder on that sheet of ice covering Lake Monona.

For more details and the entry form, be sure to check out the team’s website.

The format is a 55 mile barefoot endurance race. Driver meeting is scheduled for 6:30a, boat launch at 6:45a and the race kicks off at 7:30a. Awards are schedule to go from 11a-noon followed by a cookout and then an afternoon of water skiing, barefooting, and what sounds like an impromptu figure-8 tournament.

Check out the team’s website or 2010 Alabama River Barefoot Challenge flyer for more details.

The entry fee is $65 with registration starting at 7am, the skiers meeting at 730am and the tournament starting at 8am. The tournament will pay out $1000 for first place, $500 for second and $200 for third.

Typical figure-8 rules that follow the Footstock rule book with the exception of the ropes being on a standard tower. No duct tape or Ultimate Grip Clinchers or Masterline Pro Lock gloves.

Seeing as how it’s at the WBC, you’ll likely be competing against KSO, David Small and the rest of the staff from there.

A party will follow at 7:30pm at the WBC Headquarters located at 3915 Lake Conine Dr. East in Winter Haven and the flyer indicates FREE BEER!!!

Check out the WBC website for more details and contact info. It’s also the final stop on barefoot ski dot com’s Figure-8 Barefoot Series.

Click on the image below to embiggen the flyer…

Update 9/25/2010: The figure-8 tournament will be held on Lake Silver now. My understanding it’s a private lake so there won’t be any weekend warriors to deal with.

The first event is simply the biggest of jump from your two jumps. Simple, go farther than everyone else and you walk away with 5 grand.

The second event takes a bit more math to figure out who wins, but anyone can win. Simple out jump your personal best from the past 3-years of tournament jumping, and whoever increases their personal best by the largest percentage will also walk away with 5 grand.

If I’m understanding that second event correctly, say your personal best is 40 feet and you jump 60, that’s a 50% increase. If another person’s personal best is 50 feet and jumps 70, that’s only a 40% increase, so you’d win, even though you both increased your PB by the same amount.

I’ve attached the flyer for the event below with more details, including contact info.

• Jump Jam Flyer

You can also watch the Austin Barefoot Ski Club’s website for more details.

With just one event to go, here are the people in the running for the crown…

JJ Link versus Mike Netzer - Starting Off

The final pairing of the challenge featured Mike Netzer facing off against JJ Link. Mike Netzer entered the final pairing with one loss already, having come back through the loser’s bracket and was facing off against JJ Link, who hadn’t lost yet. For those that don’t know, that means for Mike Netzer to win the Barefoot Challenge, he needed to beat JJ Link twice. For JJ Link to win, he just had to beat Mike Netzer once.

Yet somehow, they still needed three runs to determine the winner…

Clean Lakes Festival Barefoot Challenge – 2010 Finals  [video]

Please excuse the shaky camera in the video. My video editing program actually did a hell of a job making it less shaky (you should have seen it before I processed the video.) The water was rough, the video camera was hand held and I was holding the video camera in my right hand while holding the still camera (that took all the pictures you’ve seen here) with my left, all the while trying my best to keep them both focused on the barefooters, keeping the video camera as steady as possible and taking a steady stream of still pictures in an effort to capture the moment that someone falls. Did I mention I was in a boat that was going 40.5 MPH that was driving in a TIGHT figure-8 pattern. Given the conditions, I think I did pretty well on both accounts. I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures and like this first video.