Story by: Gary Mueller
Florida’s Fleck wins record 5th National Endurance Title.
Rough water abounds as biggest field in years delivers a slew of upsets. First ever Master National Endurance champion crowned.
Crandon, Wisconsin – A year after losing in the longest run in Footstock history and taking second, Pete Fleck showed the barefoot world why he is still the king of figure eights. After dominating the Footstock field for two days, Fleck beat a gutty Jon DeBelak for his record fifth National Open Championship in what turned out to be the longest run of the day-2 and ¾ eights.
And although seeing Fleck in the finals was a familiar site, this year’s tournament was the polar opposite of last year, as wind and waves pummeled the famed Peshtigo eight. Fewer than a dozen figure eights were recorded over two days, with most of them coming in the last 5 runs of the day on Sunday.
“It was brutal out there,” explained Tournament Director and 16th place finisher Jacob Weber of Crandon. “The waves were just relentless from the time you stepped off to the final turn coming into the site. The stretch from Chetek corner to the step-off area took out most everyone.”
Despite the less than stellar conditions, nothing could spoil the party for the former X-gamess Barfeoot Champ, Fleck who was the only man to never lose a run over the two day competition. Fleck also won the Senior National Championship over DeBelak.
Click Here for full story and to view the final run between Fleck and Debelak
2012 Figure 8 Schedule
