As an eme mechanic and rider there is alot of controversy about what had happened. Being people want to side with either eme or stone i have been there from the very start. The aerial 8 was developed months in advanced before world finals. The ski was tested. Lee had the first production aerial 8 from the mold. We did spend alot of long nights and days working on preparing lee stone for world finals. Lee as most know was in a contract with seaworld which allowed him 4 days to come to world finals. He showed up wednsday to view his all New Aerail 8 and after testing wanted to change pumps, props, and nozzles. We warned him of our unknown knowledge of this swap but he wanted it anyway. We spent days trying to dial in the issues he had with the nozzles. The inlet for water was changed to try and help this bigger pump. Lee practiced just fine on the ski doing backflips and helicopters almost to the moon. Again we spent long sleepless nights working on the ski. Lee claims eme made him use illegal fuel. Yet he forgot to mention he bought the fuel and that illegal fuel doesnt exist, fuel is tuned to the riders liking. It was not checked in tech. At qualifying the ski performed perfectly fine. Lee hucked a massive backflip first second out. He forgot to mention that he installed the steering system and didnt tighten down his superflip bars correctly thus leaving him in a twisted mess during the routine. It was then made aware we should change back to another pump we had originally showed up with. ( These are kawasaki pumps as the Aerial 8 and Q8 only accept kawasaki pumps...not yamaha.) Lee claims the ski does not barrel roll. He was doing 4 rolls in a row in practice. (there are pics!). The day after the competition we spent the whole day going back to what we had origninally showed up with using the kawasaki nozzle system. No problems what so ever occured using this. The night before the competition lee had told me he would not ride if he had a glitch using the yamaha nozzle system. ( Note we had kawasaki on hand). It was even discussed that he could play off a hand injury from the qualifying incident that occured. Stone and the ski were perfectly capable of making it on the water for sundays competition. The decision was left up to the Professional Lee stone to not ride just before the competition. The eme team worked way too hard and made many sacrifices for the rider, Yet we were let down when he decided to throw in the towel. I myself worked way too hard for this story to be twisted like it was. I was there for everything. In a professional world if you have a problem it is your ability to be able to make up for the problem. Not to not ride for your team and contract sponsors.
I was deleted from friends with lee when i had posted on his article, probably to keep the truth away from his post.
The all New Aerial 8 by eme performs out of this world. We can go to the moon with it but jeremy parr wont give me directions
i will add some pics here as well
