Hood Jam
Issue 76 / Wed 7th Aug, 2019
Join Xander Raith as he gives us the inside scoop behind one of the fastest-growing events on the kiteboarding calendar!
Anyone who fills their time chasing the wind or lives within the kiteboarding bubble has heard of, visited, or yearns to include Hood River as a part of their annual kiteboarding destination. For those who have not had the opportunity to visit this wind crazed landscape, or are only aware of its exclusive conditions through the grapevine or magazines; this small town, adjacent to a rushing river is revered by kiteboarding enthusiasts, professionals, and the industry, as a whole as one of the singular best kiteboarding destinations in the United States.
For a town that has developed into a wind sports hub and a mecca for kiteboarding, Hood River is an elegant locale of the oddest calibre. Apart from the townie nature of its inhabitants, one of the most shocking aspects of Hood River is that despite its landlocked identity, the town is centred on a watersports lifestyle and culture.
Almost every car driving by is equipped with a roof rack, surf pads, a quiver of boards and an effervescent driver who is still frothing from his or her last session in the windblown river chop. Kiteboarding shops display posters of surfers in the latest neoprene, coffee shops are plastered with photos and art of salty waves certainly not hailing from the nearby river!
While the irony is nearly comical, the river most certainly does produce impressively habitual westerly winds, which ultimately draws kiteboarders to this special swimming hole nearly every summer.
As the glory of the summer month’s peak across North America, the Kite Park League (KPL) hosts the second stop of the tour in the beautiful, glacial runoff of none other than Hood River. Being home to the world's only free, public kite park aptly dubbed: the Slider Project - also known as the birthplace of many park features fueling the incessant progression of kiteboarding (the choice of location is as natural as the elements surrounding the river) Wind Voyager Authentic Apparel, in its primary year, excitedly took on the task of hosting the Hood Jam this July 2019.
Fortunately, for an activity such as kiteboarding that relies entirely upon Mother Nature and her variant gusts, conditions did not disappoint, and the wind was on tap for nearly the whole duration of the event.
In addition to favorable winds, the 2019 Hood Jam was able to incorporate a Junior Jam hosted by World Class Academy only a few days prior to the main event, giving the next generation of young rippers a chance to ride the park, and even have the potential to qualify along with the professional riders as wild cards.
Along with the Junior Jam, Hood Jam also hosted an open session allowing all local riders and eager newcomers a qualifying format to showcase their potential and earn a spot in the event. The turnout for both the Junior Jam and the Open Session was far greater than expected and continues to manifest the reality that park events are a future contingency for string surfing.
Before the Hood Jam's official welcome party, the qualification events enjoyed the steady wind and enthusiastic participation. The Junior Jam saw a total of fifteen riders and phenomenal progression in both technicality and originality from all the groms. The Open Session had a diverse crowd primarily dominated by a slew of European and Argentinean riders, as well as local Hood River destroyers. After the riders had thrown down and results were tallied, the competitors awaited their results at the registration party hosted by the Hood River's bowling alley, Orchard Lanes.
KPL invitees, Junior Jam groms and Open riders flooded the doors of the bowling alley, all chucking the dented orbs along the shiny slick lanes with a comical novice flair, all sharing in the humour of the evening.
After registration was complete, the qualifying hopefuls stood in eager anticipation to see if his or her riding had reached the high tier set by the KPL judges. At the end of the evening, a total of 5 riders were welcomed into the event, and the official start to the 2019 Hood Jam commenced.
In typical fashion, the ever-creative group of KPL riders felt it necessary to rearrange the park for the event and combine some unlikely features to create a unique waterpark setup, maximising each rider’s unique approach and skill set. After completing the remodel, the Slider Project Park was ready to be intricately dismantled by each rider's individualised set of tricks. With a total of four features including a Slingshot Kicker, a Sessions Lager Mini Kicker, a Cabrinha Fun Box to Duotone Down Box and finally a Duotone Incline to a Flat Corrugated Tube, the second stop of the KPL tour was well underway.
A total of twenty-four men and ten women assembled bright and early on the morning of Monday the 22nd, converging at the marina, buzzing from the drip of their Stoked Roasters coffee. The men were separated into three heats of eight and the women into two heats of five. To select the riders for the finals, both the men and women had three latter series that narrowed the field while also determining the initial final bracket.
Riders who placed first or second in their opening heat earned their spot directly into finals while third, fourth and fifth place finishes had to battle it out in the second chance semifinals, where top three out of the nine semifinalists would join the distinguished men's final to make a total of nine riders for the concluding round. As for women, initial winners placing first and second from heat one and two qualified directly into finals and would ultimately be joined by the top two women from semifinals to taper the ladies field to six people for finals.
In conjunction with the seeding order and qualification system, the judging format was based on a point system with the benchmark set to forty points for a perfect score. With each feature counting for a total of ten points each, half of the score was allocated to kicker hits (twenty points) and the remaining half, (twenty points) was separated between the two sliders; each rider pushing their limits in pursuit of perfection.
Amongst the slew of familiar finalists, Lucas Arsenault made his rookie debut in his very first KPL men's final. Lucas joined the crew in a stacked final line-up with exceptional Hood River wind conditions. With every feature, the crew pushed themselves and raised the bar for events to come. Ramiro Gallart, Christophe Tack and Ewan Jaspan all pulled off 900's off the kickers during the final and Ewan even laced together a contest NBD (never been done) KGB540! In spite of the highest level of competition ever seen at a Hood Jam, KPL tour leader, Brandon Scheid, rode the entire day consistently and was able to nudge Ewan off the leaderboard by .35 of a point, securing his winning place.
At the end of the day, Christophe Tack stood at the podium in 5th, Noe Font in 4th, Ramiro Gallart in 3rd, Ewan Jaspan in 2nd, and defending champ, Brandon Scheid, in 1st.
While the men's final was a hectic mix of progression and competition strategy with the newfound addition of live scoring, the women also sought to ameliorate the standards and take full advantage of the Hood Jam's progressive nature. The ladies expertly navigated their way through the features, but inevitably it all came down to their final hits on the Slingshot Kicker during which Karolina Winkowska and Annelous Lammerts were able to seal the deal and clinch the top two spots on the podium respectively.
Karolina landed herself the top spot by stomping a tootsie followed by Annelous in 2nd who landed a flawless Crowmobe. Katie Potter, finishing in 3rd, was in hot pursuit of the leaders, backing up Karolina and landing her first-ever tootsie in competition. Colleen Carroll's spot on the podium slipped from her grasp on a Crowmobe attempt during her final hit on the Slingshot Kicker, making for an exceedingly dramatic last few minutes.
Although Sensi Graves was able to put together the run she hoped for, her commitment throughout the qualifying rounds and into finals helped her achieve a 5th place finish, rounding out the podium for the women.
After all competing was said and done, the awards party kicked off with live music at Kickstand, a local hotspot offering an ideal finale to a fantastic week of kiteboarding. Most big events, such as this competition, have many moving pieces both logistically and technically and the Hood Jam was no exception to the rule; encompassing a massive group effort.
One of the most distinct qualities that are unmistakably apparent within the KPL is the presence of a sincere group mentality and passion for ensuring this event, and the entire tour, are successful. However, within this motivated group, a special thanks go out to judges Alex Lewis-Hughes, Ian Daly, and Eric Rienstra as well as James Ropner who manned the live Facebook feed from sunrise to sunset. Without the media coverage from Jackson Lebsack and Vincent Bergeron, the event would be no more than mere bragging rights.
Along with this dedication to actualise the event, Brandon Scheid headed the role as a Park Crew Leader and made sure the features were up to par while Rich Sabo oversaw the permitting of the Slider Project. If competing in the KPL Tour, riding, travelling, and working a full-time job was not enough, Colleen Carroll outdoes herself and stands ultimately responsible for managing and overseeing the entirety of the event.
Lastly, a sincere thanks from the KPL family goes out to the event sponsors and primarily Charlie McKinney and those at Wind Voyager Authentic Apparel for making this event possible. The media coverage is only just beginning to leak out, so stay tuned and prepare your anticipation for the third and final stop of the KPL, the Kite Mansion Open, slotted to go down September 15th in Icapuí, Ceará, Brazil. Keep the good times rolling and be on the lookout for more media coverage from the KPL team!
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By Xander Raith
