Name: Jason Long (aka: J-Lo)
Age: 30
Height/Weight: 5’10” / 145 lbs.
Hometown: Huntsville, AL
Riding locations: TN River around Huntsville and Guntersville Lake
Favorite place to ride: Brushy Creek, Smith Lake
Boat: 2003 SANTE (aka: “Nightrider”)
Boat setup: Factory ballast w/ Fly High “Wedge” sacs in rear and Fly High “V-drive” sac in the bow. Another 225 lbs of weights under front seat.
Board & bindings: 2006 Gator “Caddy” 2003 Byerly’s
Vest: Jet Pilot side entry (non-USCG)
The crew you ride with? I have a bunch of different crews depending on where I’m riding… My home spot I ride with Chad Seymour, Brian Adkins, Shane Cook, Greg Shelton, Shaun McKinney, Justin Waldon, few others in there too… In Guntersville I ride with a huge crew! We’ll just say I ride with Guntersville.
How long have you been riding? 12 years, since 1996 if you don’t wanna do the math.
Any injuries from wakeboarding? I’ve been lucky so far… The worst I think is a ruptured ear drum after a triple-up went bad, then just aches and pains here or there.
Do you have a favorite pro rider? I don’t really single anyone out as a favorite. Different riders strike me in different ways. I guess if I had to pick one, Byerly, just because he’s really done a lot for the sport and he’s one of the O.G.’s.
What do you think about the industry and where it is going? As long as the industry doesn’t get too gimmicky I think it can only get better. I don’t think it will ever get the respect that other board sports like skateboarding, surfing, or snowboarding get, but wakeboarding definitely has it’s own niche.
You gonna get the girls riding anytime soon? I guess you mean my daughters? Yeah, if they show interest and want too. I won’t make them do it. Lexi is a princess and doesn’t really like “boy stuff”, but I think Jerilyn will take to it when she gets old enough. We already play on the balance board and she loves the water.
How does it make you feel knowing your boat is better know than you are? I’m really low key anyway… I keep to myself and don’t draw too much attention. I guess that’s why I like black, it doesn’t stand out like red or yellow and say, “Hey look at me!” but when you have an all black truck and boat going down the road it tends to attract attention. Henry Ford said it best… “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.”
Would you rather be having “relations” or have a lake of glass, just you and the crew to yourselves, riding on an endless stretch of water? You ask the really tough questions… I guess I would ride all day, then go home really stoked from a great set and “tap that @$$!” Ahhh, who’s kidding? I’m married, I don’t get sex anymore.
Being an “O.G.” of Wakefactory, what do you think of it’s past and where do you see it going in the future? The past is the past; I try not to dwell on it… The future could hold anything! I hope that it does well and we can really keep pushing this sport I love so much. If it fizzles out though, I’ll keep riding and doing the same thing I have for the past 12 years… When I started there was one other boat on my part of the lake with a board. By the next year there were 5-6. Each year I pushed it more in my area, helping people learn, and now there is hardly a boat without a wakeboard inside. That’s all I want to do is keep giving back to a sport that has given me so much already. |
