14 year old Andrew Vo Competed at the Jetski World Finals [Hopkins Chamber]

This past weekend your local Sulphur Springs High School Freshman, Andrew Vo, a 14-year-old professional jetski racer competed at the Jetski World Finals. This is Andrew’s 3rd year of Jetski racing. He and his family raced in the Jettribe Mid America race series covering Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Kentucky.  After a long tough race season,  Andrew was able earn impressive overall trophies for his region, a first place in the 2-Stroke Lites (13-15 yrs old) class and a second place in the 4-Stroke Lites (13-15 yrs old ) class on both of his Yamaha stand up race skis.

For the finals competition, Andrew, his family and the support team traveled to Lake Havasu, Arizona to compete at the legendary IJSBA Jetski World Finals, where international riders and national riders compete against the best of the best jetski riders for the world title. This was truly an international event.  Riders traveled from all over including Europe, Asia, South America, and Dubai – a total of 27 individual countries participated.

It was the toughest race Andrew has ever fought, both on and off the track. From the emotional defeats, to being physically drained from the multiple qualifying heats, plus LCQ (last chance qualifier). It was such a big race class that  Andrew had to place in the top 6 to move on to the main race event.  After racing 2 heats, he did not qualify. To make it more challenging in the LCQ, just top 3 kids could move to main race. It was the final lap in the LCQ, and Andrew was in 4th place.  All hopes were lost, and the team thought that we are packing up to go home, preparing for the disappointment, that we would have gone so far yet not qualify to race the main.
Then the 3rd place rider suddenly came off his ski from Andrew pushing hard from behind.  With Andrew in the position to take 3rd, he was the last kid to qualify for the main race!  Whew……we were not going home early!

In the final races Andrew was able to control his emotions and draw on what depleted stamina he had left from qualifying.  We are so proud of Andrew to earn a 6th place and 10th place in the world against the best and fastest Junior stand up jetski racers, from being the last kid to qualify to race.

We believe the most important aspect that Andrew learned from racing is not about winning on the track. It is not just about being first or being the fastest.  Titles and trophies fade away over time. It’s about team work, making lifetime memories, building friendships that last a lifetime, with humbleness and gratitude for the experience.

It literally took an entire race team to get Andrew to the race track. Many thanks to Andrew Vo’s sponsors, Cometic Gaskets, Klotz Oil, Bomber Eye Wear, and Nauti Shine.

Our team feels great gratitude for Team New Zealand for adopting Andrew to their race team, Kylie E., Simon M., Oillie M., and Dave M. for the coaching, training, working on the race skis, holding and so much more. Many thanks to Jon L. and John G. for spending weeks getting the race rig ready and fuel, etc.
Most of all we could not race without the matriculate builds from Dale’s Jetsports and the software tunning from Caberra Motor Sports.

Thank you to all of Andrew’s high school teachers for not sending him to detention for missing school