For the 2008 Independent Ski Test, twenty skiers met in Bakersfield California for five days of non-stop skiing. They came from Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Kansas, South Carolina, Michigan, Tennessee and California. They traveled across the country for the opportunity to understand what makes each of the top skis different from the others. They found that often the differences are subtle and other times the differences are far from subtle.

Early every morning, factory representatives arrived on each of the two lakes with a fresh batch of skis. The reps toiled from the time they arrived until dark setting up skis, riding in the boat and explaining the attributes of each ski. With the reps on hand, ski set up was taken care of and the test team could experience how each ski performs at its best.

Everyone on the team was assigned what days they would ski and what skis they would review. Between rides the team huddled around laptop computers writing down their thoughts and talking among themselves about the attributes of each ski. The real challenge for the team was to identify and record what makes each ski different from the others. The following reviews are a conglomeration of what each test skier wrote about the skis followed by verbatim quotes.

The direct involvement of the factory’s made this years test the best yet. We owe a lot of thanks to: Eddie Roberts & Matt Rini from Radar, Greg Badal from HO, Bob Edie and Paul Crawford from D3, Brett Yager from Goode, Drew Ross from O’Brien and Jodi Fisher with Fisher.

The Ski Tests would not have been possible without the support of Malibu Boats, In Tow Ropes and Handles, Adobe Ski Ranch, 7th Heaven Ski Ranch, Mark Montgomery, Terry Raye, Randy Paquette, Dave Button, Bill Galli, Tony Auvil, Mom Horton and the lovely Kim Gallagher.