High flying fun will be outside Gord’s Bar on Water Street
By Barb Pert Templeton
Seeing a snowmobile rider doing a backflip from 60-feet in the air, high above Water Street in Marine City, will likely be just one of the many highlights at the Maritime Days Festival set for Aug. 4-6 in the city.
The KaBOOM Freestyle Show, starring Erickson Tie Downs with Chris Coosemans, will entertain crowds during three performances on Saturday, Aug. 5 at 3, 5, and 7 p.m. right in front of Gord’s bar on Water Street. There’s no admission charge to watch the show and organizers hope the unique live entertainment will draw huge crowds.
Cory Ames, of Marine City, wanted to help get the Maritime Days Festival restarted so he volunteered to bring the major event to the city.
“When I met with them. I said what do you have for a big attraction, and they said they didn’t have one,” Ames said. “So, I said St. Clair has the boat races and Armada has the Bump N Run, we need something big like that.”
Snowmobile Freestyler Chris Coosemans takes flight during one of his past shows.
Being an avid snowmobiler and a fan of the X Games, which are action sports events, Ames contacted a company out of Minnesota called X Freestyle and asked if they could bring their Flying High KaBOOM crew to Maritime Days. Three seasoned riders, one on a snowmobile and two aboard dirt bikes, will bring their talent downtown, on Saturday afternoon.
The logistics of having the riders flying 60 feet in the air while doing, for example, a backflip on a snowmobile, required some planning. Ames said they had to get permission from the city, the street is already closed for the festival so that part was easy, next up was securing some cement barriers and the team will set up inflatables for safe landings. They used to have to bring in huge barrels of sand for the riders to land in but the inflatables are much easier to deal with now, Ames said.
Catching up with a stunt rider
Snowmobile Freestyler Chris Coosemans, of Ontario, climbed atop his first snowmobile when he was about 4-years-old and while he’s been riding ever since he only started stunt driving a few years ago. After seeing a show on TV where snowmobilers were building ramps and practicing jumps, he was hooked. He soon began fine tuning his own ramp and practicing jumps to appear in freestyle events across the country. He’s been into the sport for about nine years and started participating in his own shows three years ago.
The Maritime Days KaBOOM Freestyle Show will feature snowmobile freestyler Chris Coosemans.
“I just had a knack for hitting the jumps so I made a ramp and just started practicing the jumps and increasing the distances,” Coosemans said.
This summer Coosemans, who’s built a following and launched his own company Coosemans Freestyle Motorsports, will bring his snowmobile and equipment to Marine City and has nine other appearances on his schedule too.
At the events, after traveling up a ramp, Coosemans will launch himself and his snowmobile into the air, perform a back flip and then land in the inflatables already in place on the ground. He said he can usually do about 10 jumps per show, taking off, landing, letting his machine cool off for a few and then going up again.
Coosemans appearances are often via X Freestyle and owner Joe Duncan said he manages shows all over the world including the motorsports for the winter X Games.
In fact, he’s been hosting a KaBOOM Freestyle Show at Minnesota’s annual Hay Days, which is the world’s largest snowmobile and ATV event, for 28 years now. The action includes side by side racing for youth and adults, and freestyle shows with snowmobiles, dirt bikes and quads. It draws 40,000 people to Minnesota every September.
When Duncan was contacted by Ames to help put a small show together for Marine City, he said he was happy to jump in and provide some athletes for the event. He notes that while this year the show will be on a smaller scale, he’s certainly hoping they can ‘do something bigger next year.”
Ames agrees.
“This won’t be a competition, more like practice because we have limited funds this year but I’m hoping it’s popular and next year, with just a little more money, we can get some major names (from the motocross world) to come here,” Ames said.
An example of a major event could perhaps mean hosting a snowmobile water cross race on the St. Clair River that would be hugely popular and could even be televised nationally, Ames said.
To see the Maritime Days full schedule of events, visit maritimedays.net.
