2011 Sinissippi Mud Run Figure-8
Where:  Hutisford, Wisconsin
When: May 21, 2011

By Karen Reed

The forecast for the Mud Run this year wasn’t looking too promising Friday night as we all headed to bed. Things started to look up as we woke up to sunny skies! Throughout the day we did come across two or three shower spurts but overall the day was a lot better without the thunderstorms they were originally calling for.

Registration started at 8:45, and once we had everyone signed up, we started creating the brackets for our 28 skiers. The first set of skiers hit the water at 10:15 behind a beautiful 2011 Master Craft X14 owned by Skipper Bud’s representative Chad. With skiers in the lineup like past Footstock Champions Paul Stokes, Jon Debelak, and Marc Donahue, it didn’t take long for the first complete 8’s to start! The first eight was completed by tournament runner Mark Mahan and Paul Stokes. As they crossed the step off buoys Paul threw the handle feeling an old injury on his heel starting to burn up and not wanting to take a chance.

Quickly we started to see some amazing matchups and our longest run of the day came at the first meeting of Jon vs. Marc with a total of 3.5 laps. As the runs continued throughout the brackets, we started seeing the same names in both the open and senior divisions causing us to flip back and forth in order to give the skiers a break.

At about 3 pm we started getting down to the wire. By this time we had lost great skiers like Paul Stokes, Scott Reed and Mike Netzer to the unruly water conditions on the driver’s side. The coin toss was starting to become an important part of this tournament! During the next meeting of Jon and Marc, they weren’t going to do the toss until they both said they wanted the passenger side. Now it was starting to get interesting… By a stroke of luck, Mark beat out Jon to be the last undefeated in the open division and sending Jon to battle the consolation bracket with Marc, Rob Christensen, Chris McWatters, and Curt Johnson.

With three of these skiers also in the finals of the senior division, we started to weed them down to our top four starting with Chris and Rob’s battle. With a large wave hitting him on the driver’s side, Chris went down just after halfway point in the eight. We then sent out Marc and Jon for another one of their four meetings, this one for the last undefeated position in the senior division, with Jon coming out on top. Marc wasted no time jumping right back in the water to take on Curt Johnson for the 5th place in the open division. We thought we were seeing doubles as we looked at the brackets to see our next runs would both be Rob and Marc in both senior and open consolation.

We gave Marc some time to rest and out they went, like rock stars they did them back to back each time completing just over an eight before Rob’s body gave out. Marc and Jon went out again taking to the water and completing 2.5 laps before Marc went down. At this point Jon needed to beat Mark twice to win the open division. We took off and only made it to just after the half when Mark went down. Without a break, we ran back, picked up the skis, and they did it again! This time the training partners made it 1.5 laps before Mark fell giving Jon the win! As Jon jumped in the boat he expressed his desire to be able to win both divisions, all he had to do was take down Marc.

After adding some gas to the boat, we took off for possibly the last run of the tournament. We settled in for the longest run of the day and after 1.5 eights we experienced a malfunction and these boys were so understanding they just said lets go get the skis and do it again! Off we went for round two and these boys held on for 2.5 laps before Jon fell. Climbing back in the boat one more time, these exhausted seniors had to do it again since they were all tied up now. Heading back for the skis they joked around with each other about how Jon needed to leave by four to pick up his daughter and it was now 4:20. “Let’s do it!” they said so they jumped right back in the water for round three!

Watching these guys I could tell they were getting tired, fighting for the title in every turn and every boat rollers they crossed. Expecting the longest run of the day we settled in only to be shocked when after 1.5 eights, Marc went down. Jon threw the handle and when he surfaces he celebrated with a fist pump in the air. The ride back with Marc and Jon was full of congratulations to each other and comments from them both about the desire for barefooting is so much greater now after they both had injuries keeping them out of the sport for 6 months of healing. Despite the few rain showers, we made the best of the day with a great tournament and great friends. Special thanks go out to Mark Mahan for putting on this tournament and congrats to all the winners who took home a combined total of over $800.00! Not too shabby!
 

SENIOR DIVISION Jon Debelak, Marc Donahue, Rob Christensen	ALL THE WINNERS Chris McWaters, Jon Debelak, Marc Donahue, Rob Christensen, Chase DeBeleak, Grant Johnson
OPEN DIVISION Chris McWaters, Jon Debelak, Marc Donahue	JUNIOR DIVISION Chase DeBeleak (in red) and Grant Johnson (green)