MasterCraft London Night Jump
London – England – the 2011 MasterCraft London Night Jump took place over the August public holiday weekend with the World’s elite waterski jumpers once again arriving at Liquid Leisure for an event that has become the benchmark for night time waterski jumping.
A proven format, the London Night Jump provides spectators with five action packed hours of extreme sports alternating between jumping, free style motocross (FMX) and wakeboarding.
Scott Ellis coming into land alongside the Ilmor Powered World Tournament Team Edition ProStar 197
With intense 1 hour rounds, the crowd is constantly entertained and this winning format was made even more exciting this year with a vision from event organizer Stuart Marston turning the last chance qualifying (LCQ) round into a one jump only fight for a place in the final. Instead of the usual three jumps and longest distance counts, the LCQ skiers had only one jump to put it on the line, literally all or nothing to secure themselves a place in the main event, the night final.
Following the exciting LCQ, UK FMX went about putting on their incredible display of death defying tricks made even more nail biting by the fact they were performing them over the MasterCraft X2 placed between the takeoff and landing ramp!
Keeping the action flowing, the UK’s top wakeboarders were next to entertain the huge crowd which was growing by the minute and as always the riders didn’t disappoint.
With the sun now set the atmosphere was electric with commentators Tony Lightfoot and Jaret Llewellyn warming up the crowd as the ski jumpers took to the floodlit arena to put it all on the line for a piece of the $15’000 prize purse.
Supplied by MasterCraft Boats UK, the official towboat was the MasterCraft World Tournament Team Edition ProStar 197 with the Ilmor 6.0L power plant resulting in the “strongest” jump boat ever – a testimonial made by the athletes.
The leaps in the night final grew and grew with the leader taking his place on the MasterCraft throne for the huge crowd to support until being out jumped by another finalist.
In the end, for the third consecutive year in a row, proving that he is almost untouchable, team MasterCraft athlete Freddy “the Nightmare” Krueger leaped a huge 69.4 meters on his opening jump to secure the top spot on the podium, $5000 dollars in prize money and the title of 2011 MasterCraft London Night Jump Champion (along with setting a new course record on the way) followed in second place with a jump of 65.4 meters by Scot “the Rocketman” Ellis and Thomas Asher in 3rd with 63.8.
