Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!
This weekend, the visceral sound of powerful jet ski engines will echo along Kanawha Boulevard when the country's top jet ski racers, their pit crews and followers converge at Magic Island for the national jet ski championships on the Kanawha River.
The colorful event, centerpiece of SportsFest, started in 2009. But the real backstory begins in the mid-1980s with a 10-year-old kid infatuated with a wondrous new motorized water toy.
Trey Frame's family zoomed up and down the Kanawha on jet skis before most of us even knew what they were. At age 14, he entered and won his first race in Wheeling. Now he has several national championships under his ski vest.
He introduced his brother Cameron, a two-time world champion, to racing. A newspaper story about the racing Frame boys attracted the attention of a city worker who contacted them about bringing the jet ski tour to Charleston. And here we are.
At 39, the jet ski pioneer divides his time between Daniels Electric, the family's contracting company, and Hidden Trails, their motorsports business on Morris Street.
Any spare time goes to souping up his jet ski, traveling the race circuit and tending to details involving the August race in Charleston.
All this from a guy with a degree in apparel design from West Virginia University. Yes, really.
nnn
"I'm named after my father. My actual name is Doran Hansford Frame III. My grandfather was Doran. They called my dad DH. They decided to call me Trey for the third. I named my son Doran Hansford IV, and I call him Lucky.
"My grandfather was very into the electric scene. He started Frame Electric. The year I was born, in '76, they started doing a lot of work in the coal industry, but the coal industry wanted you to be UMWA [United Mine Workers of America] where Frame was IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers]. So they created Daniels Electric. Daniels is my grandmother's maiden name.
"My grandfather ran that and eventually, my father. When I graduated college in '98, my dad was sick and asked me to come work for Daniels for a time. I had no plan to do that, although I had worked at Daniels growing up.
"I went to WVU, and I have a degree in apparel design, of all things. I've always been into design, but not like casual apparel. I wanted to do tennis shoes and work for Nike. My whole plan was to go to Oregon and work for Nike, but then my dad got sick and asked me to help out. He said, 'Always remember, if you come help me, you will be able to do anything you want in life.' I was like, 'OK, Dad, whatever. I'll come in and give it all I've got.' And I've been pretty successful at it.
"My grandparents' house is on the river in Kanawha City. My dad and my uncles were some of the first in the area in the mid-'80s to have jet skis. They were unheard of back then. And that was it. The feeling of getting on there, motorized, and being able to do anything you want. It was like riding a motorcycle on the water. Everything about it appealed to me.
"Huntington used to be one of the national jet ski tour stops, and my dad would take us, and we would see guys from California, Florida, everywhere. The lifestyle of the jet ski racer really appealed to me.
"In college, my senior thesis was on protective equipment for jet ski racers. I designed these shin guards that would protect you, because leg injuries are common. A variation of my design is still used today.
"So I had this apparel design degree and went into electrical contracting. About five years ago, I had the opportunity to design my own wetsuits through one of my sponsors. Before my dad passed in 2011, I was able to say, 'Hey, Dad, here's your college degree that you paid for.' It was neat to actually be able to use my degree.
"But I was entrenched in the family business. A lot of our work is in the coal industry. Cameron worked there, my older brother, Steve. We do not only do Daniels Electric but the Hidden Trails business. Steve and Cameron work at Hidden Trails, and Cameron works at Daniels Electric and I'm back and forth.
"Hidden Trails started in Charleston last year, but back in 2013 we bought Hidden Trails in Shrewsbury. It's no longer open.
"In high school, Cameron was a wild child. I thought, 'man, I should get him into jet ski racing and put his focus on something positive.' I started racing at 14 in Wheeling. I won, and after that I was totally hooked.
"Cameron was probably 18 when he started traveling with me, and we've been a team ever since. My brothers and I are like best friends. We are always around each other.
"I've won three national championships. I've never won a world championship, but Cameron has two, and he reminds me of that. The best I've ever placed in world championships is fifth. But it is very competitive, so I am very proud of him for that. I get more nervous watching him race.
"Back in 2008, the paper did an article on our team about traveling and going to the world championships. My friend's mom Beverly Page works at the mayor's office, and she read the article and called and said we should try to get something like this to Charleston. We didn't have the regatta anymore. I thought something needed to focus on the river.
"I thought Magic Island would be the best spot because everyone is sitting above the river and looking down like a stadium view. She got in touch with the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Samantha Carney called and wanted to meet. I contacted the promoter and said I had an opportunity to meet with the CVB and I'd like to get a race to Charleston. He gave me some information, and I met with her and it snowballed. It took a year to plan the first event in 2009.
"I went to the Kanawha River Navy event and spoke to them, and I went to Bill Barr with Amherst. They scheduled their barge shipments around our event, which is a huge deal because we basically have to shut down the river from a certain time to a certain time. If not, you would have to pull off the buoys every time the barge went by. It wouldn't make sense to do the event without his help. We are very appreciative with what he agreed to do.
"Then it started rolling. We worked with the city to shut down the boulevard for three days and provide the racers what they needed.
"The very first event, it flooded. All that hard work, and it was so perfect in every aspect, but it downpoured for days and the river came up. They were still trying to do the races and the river was rising by feet every hour. I was sitting on the starting line, and this huge tree, root ball and all, came by.
"We got one day of racing in, and Sunday it flooded so bad we had to cancel the races. I thought sure the city was going just pull the plug on the whole event, but they like to see heads and beds, which is the whole point, the economic impact.
"They saw the benefits and even decided to add events onto ours. Besides the jet skis, SportsFest pro beach volleyball that first year, and this year they have three-on-three basketball and a skateboarding competition and a jujitsu competition, so it has grown every year. I am so grateful for the city to stand behind the event when they could have pulled the plug after that first year. They saw the value of it.
"This year, it's going to be televised on CBS Sports at 8 p.m. Sept. 15 and Oct. 5.
"We get about 150 racers, but we bring our families and pit crews and spectators, so it's more than just the racers. They like it here. We have Live on Levee and the music outside the Four Seasons host hotel, and they can walk to the race site and restaurants and bars. It's appealing for the convenience factor, and they see that the city loves the event. Thousands come out to watch. And you can bring boats right up to it.
"I have about four skis I take to races, different modification levels. Say my really fast ski breaks down, I have a backup. The race I run is the Pro Runabout GP, which means you can do just about anything you want to the ski, really soup it up. We're pushing 450 to 500 horsepower jet skis that go zero to 90 in less than three seconds. It's amazing how quick they are.
"They have a stock class, basically a ski off the showroom floor, but I get bored with that. I like the adrenaline with the speed. You also have the standup skis. A lot of guys still race those. They use those for flips and stuff. I enjoy watching the standups that I grew up riding and racing, but I'm getting old and can't compete as well as I'd like to.
"Winning is a whole combination of physical preparation and a very fast ski, and it has to be durable. If you have a fast ski and go three laps and you are winning and break down, it's pointless.
"We build all our own skis. We are among the few racers that actually are capable of building and riding what we build. A lot of the top racers have engine builders and they just show up to race. Cameron and I aren't like that.
"Our dad taught us about working on engines. He was always building cars and bikes and everything from a young age, so we were always tinkering with them in the garage. Of course, when he got these skis, he had to mess with them to make them go faster.
"We're selling a lot of jet skis. Hidden Trails is different from contracting. Contracting is very stressful and demanding. Hidden Trails is the fun part of what I do. You are selling fun, selling enjoyment to people.
"Service work has gone up because people are trying to take care of what they have as opposed to buying something new. So the economy has affected us, even the Daniels side. Seventy-five percent of what we do is with the coal industry.
"We went through two Patriot bankruptcies and now we are working for Blackhawk. Everybody's on edge in contracting. That's the reality of it.
"But people still need work done, and we are fortunate to continue to do it because of the quality of the work we do. Still, it's a struggle, especially power line work. I've been working on the side of a mountain on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. When that stuff goes down, you have to be there or they will find someone else. So we get to our customers."
Reach Sandy Wells at
sandyw@wvgazette.com
or 304-342-5027.