Here is my two cents.
For pro, the rules should be "run what you brung." Everyone is pretty much competing on 25k + boats anyways. I would suggest a displacement limit but really there isn't many engines out there that if they were 2000 cc's that would give you an advantage. It is like a law of diminishing returns. You are just adding more weight with a huge engine. I doubt you will see three or four cylinder engines in freestyle anytime soon.
I also thought of putting a dollar cap on the ski value. But that would be too hard to enforce. So again, run what you brung.
Another thought about judging is to have a list of specific tricks that the competitors have to preform. Like you must pull a flair, barrel roll, double trouble, flat water backy, ect... Then throw in old school tricks like subs, log rolls, monkey jumps, bull dogs, ect... The new routines while impressive in the difficulty of tricks, has become very boring to me. Sure when Malone had his 2005 and 2006 runs everyone was majorly impressed. But that was because not too many others were pulling those kind of tricks. Now everyone is at that level or very close to it. I like the old school routines that had flow from trick to trick a lot better. And what is it with just one run? I thought they used to do two or three runs with an average score or dropping the lowest run's score. Any other sport that has judge frestyle has multiple runs, not just one shot. Heck even the olympics has more than one go at events unless it is a race!
Another thought is that the conditions were flat out horrible the last xxx number of years. Maybe I am just too used to riding rivers but that wat was nothing but pure choppieness. It would be nice to try and have a large pond or pool to where the water was smoother and calmer.
Finally what ever happened to having ramps and things in competitions? I would like to see some ramps and rails or that up hill rapids. That is truely the innovation we need. The same old vanilla comps that go on now will never make it into the X Games!
I went white water rafting several years back and I got thinking how I should get a beater hull, pop rivet stainless steel plates about 1/16" thick to the bottom of it, and design a pump that could process the white water better. Then I was going to go out and beat the heck out of some mounatin streams and rivers around here in WV. That up hill rapid competition reminds me of this some what.
Rant Over, take it at face value but this years worlds with all the DQ'ing is a joke, we will never progress at this rate. This is why everyone likes the freeride ocean events anymore.
DBR
