Wakeboarders Hit Town

Get ready for back flips, front flips, side flips, twists and turns as 50 or more competitors of all ages go surfing across the wake of a boat at 45 mph on a four-foot board in an attempt to win first place in a wakeboard competition.

Northwest Sessions, a nonprofit recreational organization from Seattle, will put on the freestyle wakeboard tournament Saturday at Nine Mile Resort on Lake Spokane (Long Lake).

The tournament is the second stop in a five-event tour across the Northwest and the only such competition to hit Spokane this summer.

“The sport is just exploding all over the nation,” said Vince Zimmer, a sponsor for the tournament this weekend and owner of Alpine Haus & Marina, where wakeboard equipment is sold.

“It’s why snowboarding became so popular,” he said. “People are finding it easy to do tricks on these boards. Right now, we are selling five wakeboards to one pair of (water) skis.”

Wakeboarders will have five minutes to impress the judges with whatever tricks and stunts they can muster up across the lake and back. A small buoy course will be set up for anyone interested in experimenting with a slalom event.

Competitors need to bring their own boards. Registration will be conducted between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. Competition will begin at 10.

The registration fee for World Wakeboard Association members is $30, which provides a T-shirt, a one-year subscription to Launch magazine and a one-year subscription to Wakeboarding magazine. Non-WWA members must pay an additional, one-time insurance fee of $35.

For information, contact the event organizers, D.J. Esary or Rob Hyatt, at (425) 608-8354.

For information on wakeboarding, call Zimmer at (509) 927-2505.

, DataTimes