buckethead 2015

Was good to meet you all and yes CCF was in the house. The BFN's were of abundance there looking good and running well. Next year will be even better with it being the 10th anniversary.

Was and is always a blast. Hope everyone gets home safely.

Just rolling into New York. Awesome weekend. Awesome race. The team did a great job, especially our drivers Tim and Hollywood. The race is intense to ski let alone driving 40+ avoiding boats, people, and river obstacles.

Great to meet some more CCFans (Pirate Steve, Tullfooter and crew, Sebastian, Pat) and the buckethead teams. It's always a good time getting the CCFan group together.

Nice pictures so far! Looking forward to seeing what else was captured.

What an awesome weekend at the Buckethead barefoot race! our team deep rudders did a great job for a bunch of newbies to the race. The start is really intense but we got in sink and laid down some long runs, past a few teams after the 19 mile turn for our respectable 7th place finish. Thanks to all the boat owner for making these events happen! we are all looking forward to running the race next year.

Great pictures and that looks like a fun time.

Fellas, first I would like to thank the race organizer, Mr. Buckethead himself (AKA Brian McMillan). He and his wife Cara (She gets most of the race set up) are two of the most gracious hosts I've met and generally just a pleasure to be around. They put together one of the coolest things I have been a part of to date. Also, huge thanks to all the local volunteers and Brian's family for the beautiful "Camp Ground".

Friday night Dave Hart put is beautiful 88 on the table for us to completely soak with our practice runs. Everyone put in their two cents about in boat race procedure and in an hour or so we had a well oiled process for footing and pick ups. Tim and HW were driving having the most experience pushing the footer hull to its limits. When it came time for the big show, TRBenj laid it on the line with the 79 sporting its fresh M750 quick fuel. The boat never once hesitated to perform all the duties we asked of it.



As the other guys have said so far, the start of the race is probably one of the most intense things I have ever done. The horn sounds and 12 skiers flop in the water as you hear 12 American V8s crack to life, ropes get tight then its game on. 12 boats side by side at 40-50 mph with a footer in tow is one of the coolest and most intimidating things I have seen.

The pre race was full of banter between the teams but it was dead quiet when they started the count down to launch. The tone in the boat was quiet and focused other than rooting the footer in tow on encouraging a longer run or congratulating smashing through some rough water. People lined the entire 19 mile route in boats and on land/bridges cheering as each boat went screaming by.

We only botched two starts during the race but that was due to those being starts in the roughest water during the race. I was a little more optimistic about what the outcome would be than the rest of the guys were but in the end we were all surprised and extremely happy with our performance. Everyone on the team skied extremely well with nobody having a bad run. Our run back was much faster than the run up as we were reeling boats in and spitting them out with some nice water. We even got in a nice little drag race with the Felgner rig!

Basically, even if you don't foot you should see the event at some point. Thanks to Brad, Dave, Tim, Scott, and Hollywood for coming to the event and performing like the studs they are. Thanks to Tim and Dave for supplying their mean machines. Thanks to everyone who came out to watch and participate in the Sunday activities as well. Never a bad time is had with the CCF dudes. Also, it was nice to meet everyone that I met for the first time too!

My expectations were far exceeded for a group of inexperienced racers. Daryl and John would have been proud! Tim's 79 ran awesome, the ski runs were long. We finished undead AND one boat ahead of my "top five of the bottom five" prediction. There is definitely room for easy improvement. I'm ready to do it again next weekend but sadly we have to wait a year. I'm thinking we mix up the Saturday team incorporating the Sunday guys and run our own hungover-head-to-head CCF race Sunday. Muddy Mommys VS Hot Bananas. Lots of fun skiing and meeting all the other footers there.

Way to go gun-driver on his first LL foot run! That is a major accomplishment.

Dave's 88 made me realize how badly we need a new distributor on Johnny's rig. That thing pulls like hell for a stock boat. Some booms and a pick-up boat for next year would be nice.

Rumor has it, that one of the footers behind the suped up 502 ski was clocked at 57mph at one point in time. Looooong runs and speed is the ticket.
The fastest team ran the course in 54mins. Pretty nice average if you do the math.
The deep rudders looked strong and skied through some tough waters right where we had the backup boat. Lots of downed skiers in that area due to bad water but our tough guys went right through it.

Hollywood wrote: Dave's 88 made me realize how badly we need a new distributor on Johnny's rig. That thing pulls like hell for a stock boat. Some booms and a pick-up boat for next year would be nice.

I would like to do the pick-up boat thing. I could certainly keep up with you guys in the Bass Nautique. Pretty sure we could run some easy to rig ladder to make climbing in easier.

i'd be in favor of a down and back type of race instead of just straight down

What everybody said above that was just to much fun.
I just got done checking in to my local AA house. As always three days is to short but my liver says its two days to long. Great seeing everyone again and a big thanks to Steve and Lance for the footing time off that beautiful 86 bfn.
While sitting along the river with the pickup boat all I could say was HOLY CRAP as those guys flew by at 50+!!! It was really cool hearing those big V8's screaming up the river with skiers in tow can't wait to do it again next year

skutsch wrote: Hollywood wrote: Dave's 88 made me realize how badly we need a new distributor on Johnny's rig. That thing pulls like hell for a stock boat. Some booms and a pick-up boat for next year would be nice. I would like to do the pick-up boat thing. I could certainly keep up with you guys in the Bass Nautique. Pretty sure we could run some easy to rig ladder to make climbing in easier.

No need for a ladder...I'll ride with ya and pull guys up into the boat!

I was wondering what kind of runs you guys would have. 1.5 mile average seems pretty good and about what I would expect. I've seen some vids of guys going 5 minutes or better. In the past, and I just went back and checked to remind myself, at the 20 mile Austin race a few years ago, the winning team "Top gun" who I think is pretty well regarded as the best, did the 20 miles in 21:55, which if my math is right is a 55 mph average, including transitions. But I also think I recall reading that they will do the whole 20 miles in like 4 legs/3 transitions. Hard to believe at those speeds their feet last that long. I guess they are regarded as a "pro" team though. Not sure what distinguishes a pro team from an amateur team. But anyway. You guys did great. I'm impressed. Sadly, I don't think that is an old man sport, just in terms of the endurance expectations.

Yeah, there was a wide range of ages in this thing. Plenty of guys beat us who were 1-2 decades older than me. Top gun won yesterday and is legit. They said their 409 Sanger ran 57, I'm guessing they ran 50 or so in the race? Probably pinned... Moving average over 42 is pretty fast in a race that long with a gas stop.

They maxed out at just over 53 this weekend but tested it hit 54.7