Mason Farmer is the man. At twelve years old, Mason is quickly becoming my personal hero. I met Mason in the fall of 2006 when he and his mom took a two person private lesson while his older brother and dad took off to playboat. The entire family has been paddling at the USNWC ever since and it's been fun to watch them all progress in playboats, creeking and slalom. Mason went with our local Chilean wonder, Pablo McCandless to a qualifying race in Maryland in late March. It was a balmy 45 degrees for his first slalom race ever. On his first run he missed 8 gates and rolled 3 times. He got out of the water after that run really cold and dejected and told his mom he didn't want to do his second run. Pablo gave him a good pep talk, looked over the course with him and got him out on his second run where he improved significantly. Because Mason finished the race he qualified for a slot at this weekends Olympic Team Trials. His second race ever and he is hanging with the likes of Scott Parsons, Brett Hyle and David Ford.
Watching Mason's race on Friday was nothing short of inspiring. On his first run he hit the big drop thru gate 19, flipped, rolled up quickly and finished strong. Let's set the scene. The competition channel starts with a series of pushy class III wave trains and comes around a tight corner with a class IV drop into a munchy hole. Friday's race course had racers eddying out at gate 18 on the river left side directly above the big class IV drop. Then they were to slide through gate 19 into the middle of the big munchy hole keeping their boats straight to the finish line. Mason's second run he spun through a few gates upstream of the big drop, came into number 18 backwards, spun out of gate, down the big drop, missed number 19, paddled back up to the gnarly hole, crashed into the foam pile without even flinching looping back through 19 and finishes the course strong. It was amazing! Most pro slalom boaters I know would have been okay with missing the gate because going back into that hole is a pretty intimidating thing but this 12 year old kid who just got in a slalom boat for the first time not even six months ago is charging it hard. It was probably the coolest thing I saw all day. Mason and the other 119 paddlers are racing again today and tomorrow from 11 to 4. Be sure to come on out and cheer them all on and keep an eye out for Mason. In between races he has been getting in his playboat so look for him throwing down at M-wave.
