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As well as offering a $3.000 p\Jrse. . . for competitors, this year's Fat City Showdown on Steamboat Springs, Colo.'s Yampa River also offered something else alluring to participants: finals held under a suspended disco. ball and Routt County full moon.Though the event started at 2 p.m.. the final round didn't get started. until 9 pm. under the B'g Dipper: -Though multi-end dipper Dan Gavere had the most entertaining ride with a waterproof headlight strapped to his helmet-with the. result looking like a twirling Fourth of July sparkler-C1ay Wnght captured top nocturnal honors with an endless procession of cartwheels in his customized Amp, the "Amputee."'We just wanted to do something different" says Jerry Baxter of Fat Eddy's Threadworks. which organized the event. We weren't aware that anyone else was doing the same thing. Next year we plan to go even bigger with the ligllt show.. -edb Boise County Throwdowrf . With more than 300 spectato.rs and 40 competitors. night owls in Boise. Idaho, held their second-annual freestyle event June 8 under a canopy of darkness at Gutter Rapid on the Main Payette. The event featured a wave and hole less than 10 yards apart from one another. with four anonymous judges trying to narrow down the field as all 40 contestants converged on the playspots at the same time. Adding to the confusion was a DJ spinning tunes under Oood lights. a suspended disco ball and strobe lights, After 45 minutes of mayhem. the judges whittled down the field to 10 competitors. Those left again competed at the same time to get narrowed down to three finalists, with the crowd deciding the ultimate "",nner. Winding up on the barely viSible podium was Washington's Rob Turner. who-at midnight-won a custom-made WWF-style "';restling belt, complete with his name engraved on the buckle. "It was kind of a big party scene." says organizer Sam Goff. "Vve had to make sure the locals knew what was going on beforehand.. -edb Pretty in pink: event organizer Sam Goff going off under the lights. For the past two years, local rodeo rowdies have lit up a playhole on Minnesota's St. Louis Riverfor a freestyle swap session under the stars. What makes this event so special is the caliber of the lighting. Instead of siml?ly using a couple of rented flood lights. organizers up the wattage. going so far as to hire Dan Monskey of the Minneapolis Institute of Art who last year racked up about $900 in electricity bills for the one-night event Monskey treats it as an art project. and the results show. The event has generated such fanfare that Notional Geographic . recently caught wind of it and is planning to cover this year's event in August. Monskey now has grander schemes up his sleeve. setting his sights on lighting 48-foot Lover's Leap on the nearby Cascade River for a similar event. "It's definitely a magical setting." says local photographer Doug Nelson. '1"he whole river gets lit up from bank to bank. The competitors and spectators love it." -edb www.paddlermagazine.com . 27 - -. --- "- .---.