NAWF 07 - down-home ingenuity in the land of cotton

By Clay Wright

South of Huntsville? The rebel flags and cotton fields start popping up not long after you cross out of Tennessee so arriving in the ‘land of cotton’ can be a cultural experience even for us Southerners!

Despite the drought that has nearly suffocated Southeastern paddling opportunities all winter, these ‘Alabama Boys’ worked overtime to make sure their festival lived up to expectations and the traveling competitors all had a good time. First up was the waterfall-freestyle comp off Short Creek Falls. This forgiving 18’er is the perfect site to learn a freewheel, and that’s just what Samantha Bruner did .. nailing one perfect freewheel after another – her first tries ever – to take the ladies crown. Her coach, Boyd Ruppelt, showed he mastery again and again, throwing perfectly landed far past-vert pan-ams time after time to make it into the finals and possibly end up 3rd? But local / event organizer Keith YELL’s 05/06 winning routine – a rock 360 into a past-vert freewheel/pan-am proved to be the winning ride once again, this time re-defined by Spencer Cooke. Spencer added lofty pogo’s into cartwheels and loop attempts upon landing to narrowly beat out Yell’s smooth showing.

Next up was the race… with a shallow ‘bouy’ at the top and a Red-bull bouy at the bottom, racers battled it out around, off the falls, and around the underside of the waterfall for some great head to head action. I believe Great Show – judging all day so didn’t get any shots…

The next day, organizers engaged in some Redneck-engineering to make the most of what water was dropping down the newly renovated play-spot just upstream from the campground. David Livingston’s pumps with Keith’s ‘Hardwood Mooring’ channelized the feature just enough to allow some amazing rides by the most careful. Anyone not in the perfect spot either found rock or had to stay flat, so the results were really clear to all.

While JK’s Brad Sutton seemed to hit on every single end, he kept it vert and moving throughout his rides to make the tip 6. Costa-rican paddler ‘Stanley’ didn’t seem to touch at all, and in our Star demo he was in 3rd place before finals. In the end, Todd Baker came out of nowhere to rip this feature like no one before or since, nailing tricky woo’s, a phonixs monkey, and a lofty air-wheel. Bryan Kirk took second with his tricky’s and loop and Chris Grahtman took 3rd simply by throwing low-angle cartwheels and a loop attempt. The point spread was huge on this one, but I believe Stanley came in just behind Chris because Spencer’s solid rides finally fell off their high event-long standards.

The women had just Tia, Laurenn Buress, and Jennifer Taylor in her OC-1! Must say, despite Tia’s airwheel and Lauren’s usual cuteness that this time Jenn put on the best show! Swimming is hard to top, and makes ‘not swimming’ more exciting than anything on the score sheet.

In the Jr.s it was Jonothan all day. While he was given a stout run for his money by ‘Eric’s’ big loops, Jonothan worked through the lower-scoring moves showing incredible boat and self control before trying his loop and monkey at the end. I think he won the Falls and got 2nd in the race for the Expert Class, but we’ll have to wait for the official results to know for sure.

With dusk came the ramp competition . .a 40’er with all sorts of possibilities was right in the middle of the party but us judges were too tired and thirsty so it became an ‘exhibition’ instead. Much fun was had by all – especially the guy taking the bike off it the next day!

Check out NAWFest.com for full – maybe even accurate – results in the future. After all the hard work he put in, Gavin is probably taking a well-deserved rest.

Special thanks to Alabama Small Boats, Gavin, David, Keith, the lovely ladies who kept it all running, and the owners of this amazing property. Looking forwards to 08 NAWF when not only will there be more water, but also I’ll be able to paddle in it!

Clay Wright