Scot Jones &The Reverse Banana
The Test skiers were specifically instructed to take their time and focus on how the skis felt as opposed to running a lot of short rope. This all went out the window Friday when Scot Jones ripped right though to 2 @ 41 (36 mph) on a test ski. It takes a lot to impress this group of skiers but everyone had to pay homage to this level of skiing on an unfamiliar ski.

 Scot was very happy, but characteristically humble about his skiing. When he called his wife to check in on her and the kids he told her about the ride. She then let then news slip to some skiers at the record tournament at Bennett's. Within an hour of his ride Scot was getting "Atta-boy" text messages from his ski buddies. With Bruce Butterfield, Scott Greenwood, Keith Albritten, Mark Schneewind and Chad Scott on the dock, this weekend was looking to be a "BigDawg" exhibition as well as a ski test.

 The next morning Scott Greenwood, Ward & Kim McLain, Mark Schneewind and I were talking about it over breakfast when we realized that Scot Jones' rope was not a switch rope and his 2 at 41 was really only 2 at 39. As far as I know Scot has never had a tan in his life but his normal level of pale tuned a shade green when he realized what had happened. He was genuinely embarrassed that everyone was putting him up on a pedestal. Of course we all agreed that it was funnier if we held the truth until dinner that night.

 Even though the famous 2 @ 41 never happened, Scot did legitimately run 38 off @ 36 mph on every ski he tested except for the last one. Failure to do so on the last ski of the weekend was clearly not a reflection of the ski but of the fact that we just wore him out. (We did manage to get one Tequila shot in him Saturday night but I am unconvinced that this was a factor.)

Note Worthy
Jed Blackburn went the whole weekend without missing a single ball on any ski he rode.

Chad Scott is a Fin Tuner!
On Cottonwood lake Chad Scott did a lot of ski set up on Saturday. As expected he did a yeoman’s job with everyone’s skis. I was in the boat when he got out of the tuning tent and got to ride the 68” Monza. It seemed to me from the boat the ski was working Ok but was just too big for his weight at 36 mph. On his last pass he impressed us all with a solid 35 off in a strong tail wind. Back at the dock he commented in his usual slow and deliberate tone something like “that ski is alright, but I did not feel like I could keep tip down.” About ten minutes later someone noticed that with all the fin tuning Chad had done for other skiers he had not tightened the clamp for his own test ski. The fin was moving free in the clamp.

Seeing this Chad looked at Joe Darwin and said, “ Hey Joe, let me take that home and try it again. It might not be so bad.”