IJSBA is providing competitors an update on the suggested venue layout changes deliberated for the 2025 Short Block Technologies. On June 19, of this year, IJSBA released the following posting: - IJSBA. The proposed new layout introduces several new concepts to World Finals the most central being a course featuring a right hand turn. The posting requested public comments. This posting details the concept, the comments received, and the planned results.
We are lucky to have Crazy Horse for a venue. If the event is to remain in Lake Havasu City, there are few locations that can accommodate a Personal Watercraft event of this size. There have been three locations for World Finals: The Nautical Inn and Resort, Rotary Park, and Crazy Horse. By the recollection of most people, Rotary Park was the venue only once. World Finals, except for the one known time at Rotary, took place at the Nautical until the end of the 1990s. The event has been at Crazy Horse for more years than any other venue. The event has evolved into the offerings at Crazy Horse. 2024 was a rough year for the event. The reality of cost escalation hit just before World Finals production went underway affecting vendors, the site, and IJSBA. Everyone scaled back. Record heat at the event did not help foot traffic. Winter provided a long opportunity to discuss these factors in great detail with plenty of passionate emphasis. Other venues were explored in Lake Havasu City and none proved feasible or even available. IJSBA constructed the new site layout.
There were a lot of benefits to the redesigned site layout. Most notably, the pits would be moved far away from the channel which just seems too tempting for competitors to stay away from- a combination of factors that is very upsetting to the local sheriff. A right hand course means that the event has less late afternoon sun in the face of the riders on the back stretch. The new layout provided much more beach space for pits, a streamlined new opportunity for vendors along with vendor provided shade stations in case the event experienced similar temperatures as 2024. Perhaps, most of all, the a benefit was just trying something new when consistency fatigue was very palpable last year.
Drawbacks included that parking for pits once the trailer was dropped would be close to the vendor area instead of being as closely available as in the traditional layout. Vendors would have had less paved area and would have had to integrate the cement dividers into their booth design. What became the subject of most concern was the fact that we do not have experience with a right hand turn course at Crazy Horse. The estimated starting gate position did not have any test data and probably could not be changed once the event was under way. This concern is coupled with two additional areas of worry: rolling wakes coming from the casino ferry at the end of the back stretch (especially in high speed Ski classes) and adequate buffer sending the first turn towards the channel.
After much public comment and deliberation, IJSBA will maintain the standard layout for 2025 and will set up a set start, during the event, and invite riders, teams, promoters, and race directors to do a site walk through to test, contemplate, and prepare an implementation for 2026. Please emails questions or comments to info@ijsba.com
