Inside Thailand King's Cup Story from Jettribe Team Rider Rick Sherker.

Where to start…. This years King’s cup trip started in Thailand. This was my second time traveling here to race, in what is one of the greatest PWC races in the world! Similar to last year, it started with meeting the Jettribe team in Bangkok after traveling for 24 hours late at night. I traveled with my good friend Geno Curran, we were greeted by Tony Vo and Derek Correll at the airport, after meeting up with Brent Venderley earlier in our travels at the layover in Tokyo. The next day we were greeted by more of the team at breakfast, and then proceeded to make the trip down to Pattaya after stopping and Visiting the Moto Field shop run by our good Thai friend Sam. I’ll do my best to keep it relatively brief and use plenty of pretty pictures (courtesy of John Cutright) to sum up my experience… The Race The rest of the week was all business, getting the ski unpacked and ready for the race. This included swapping motors with a fresh one, breaking it in, rejetting the carbs multiple times to adjust for the different fuel and getting it perfect for race day. After many practice starts and little adjustments I was really confident with how things were running.

There are a lot of things you can prepare for and some out of you control. I trained extremely hard preparing for this event doing some kind of cardio or cross training 7 days a week for about two months after returning form Havasu. I practiced in frigid temperatures with hand warmers, feet warmers and a dry suit until the day before leaving. I prepared a plan on ski setup to workout some issues I had at World Finals just prior to shipping the ski out which worked out great… Then there are the things that are harder to control! I got some sort of bug. Not sure if it was a cold coming back that I had just started to get over before leaving, or something I picked up in my travels. I had felt a little under the weather all week, but didn’t realize how bad it was until the first turn of the first moto. I struggled with it the entire weekend. Was fighting a fever and felt like I was burning up as soon as my adrenaline would get pumping. Things started out great, I grabbed the holeshot in moto one and lead the race for a few laps until I proceeded to loose positions and drop back the 5th by the checkered flag.

Moto two was a little better with another holeshot from the outside start only to get beat out by my old ski from last season on the inside start at the merge! Ended up finishing in 3rd. Going into Sunday’s moto, for moto 3 I was sitting in fourth and had hopes of improving to the top three, however I felt even worse and could not keep it from reflecting on the track. My starts were poor, and I struggled to just maintain my position, rather than being able to fight through the pack. I ended up 6th overall after the four moto’s. Although I was a little frustrated and disappointed with my results, it was a success. Pro ski was the most stacked It’s ever been, with the best of the best. Already looking forward to 2013!!!

This year, the Jettribe team had some new members who got to experience their first King’s Cup. Jamie-Lee Spence from Australia made the trip and did a great job in Novice ski stock in her first big time race. Woody made the trip from China to compete in his first international race and mixed it up with the big boys in Expert Runabout Limited where he fought his way into the top ten. It was really cool to get to pit and hang out with these guys. The awards The crew…

The goodbyes With racing in the books, the ski’s crated back up for the boat ride home, the awards ceremony over, and a night of celebrating with the team, it was time to head out. We said our goodbyes to Jamie and her father at the hotel who were staying another week in Pattaya for vacation. Then we said goodbye to Woody and his crew at the airport who were headed home to China.

The rest of us caught a short flight east to Vietnam… Written by Rick Sherker