Sometimes things happen in your own backyard right under your nose. Unbelievably, we only heard of the Franklin Freestyle Water Show this afternoon, well after the weekend’s debut. Held between 12-to-3pm both Saturday and Sunday at Westhaven Lake in the Westhaven Residents’ Club located in gorgeous Franklin, Tennessee, the first-ever Franklin Freestyle Water Show entertained residents and spectators with a dazzling display of amateur and professional flat water freestyle – literally minutes away from The Watercraft Journal home office.
Presented by H2X Racing Promotions, the freestyle show consisted of three professional freestyle riders, including multi-time IJSBA World and National champion Jason “The Destroyer” Stoyer, fellow Amateur and World champion Chris Langlais and up-and-coming Michigan-rider Evan Krefski. All three performed a total of 8 shows over the 2-day period, lasting between 20-to-30 minutes, with a meet-and-greet autograph session afterwards.
While the crowds weren’t what you’d call a “packed house,” they were enthralled with the aerial acrobatics that these athletes could perform, including many of these Hydro-Turf sponsored riders polishing up on their World Finals routines, displaying many of their signature tricks, and tossing out an impressive 15-foot back flip. All-in-all, the event put freestyle riding in front of an audience who otherwise would never have known it existed, and that is the goal.
As H2X writes, “…freestyle combines the talent of the rider, the power of the watercraft, and the imagination of the crowd to make it a triple header of guaranteed excitement!” While the images shown here (provided by The Tennessean’s Shelley Mays) are fantastic, there’s a whole gallery of action shots to be seen HERE and on the venues’s official Facebook page HERE. Until then, enjoy the video of many of the show’s highlights below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NdF7YKxClg
