Backflips were once the single-most impressive and difficult to execute tricks in all of freestyle. Preparing an engine with enough low end torque and a lightweight machine to be able to snap out of the water with enough force to rotate itself and the ride a full 360 degrees was possibly one of the biggest challenges apart from training the athlete enough to pull it off.
Today, modern freestyle skis are almost pre-programmed to whip out consecutive backflips with the greatest of ease. Modern lightweight engines erupt with insatiable amounts of torque, launching lightweight aftermarket skis (rife with billet aluminum and carbon fiber components) high into the air with just the flick of the throttle. If you like backflips, expect to see at least a dozen of them in nearly every freestyle routine.
That’s why we gotta love Lee Stone. Clearly fed up with so many dishing out repetitive backflips throughout their routines, Stone snapped off a dozen or so backflips, but landing each one standing on one foot as if to say, “You like backflips? Here, chew on these!” But if Stone’s IJSBA World Championship freestyle routine wasn’t enough to wow you (make sure you read about his crowd-pleasing heel-clicker backflip), Stone also went about shattering the current world record for consecutive backflips.
The final participant in the Macc Racing Flip Off, Stone needed to surpass Texan Jace Forest’s final count of 24 flips. It was a steep order to fill and many feared that the afternoon’s winds whipping up the lake would make it too difficult to surpass. Undaunted, Stone set a course for well past the flag tower, and continued snapping off repetitive backflips until finally stopping at a dizzying total of 36.
The effort earned Stone the grand prize of $2,000 presented by Hydro-Turf and Macc Racing, and a spot in the latest copy of Guinness World Records. Don’t believe it? Watch the video below:
