Water Wonder Boy, Las Vegas Sun, Aug. 22, 1996

Water wonder boy Lisa Sciortino Thursday, Aug. 22, 1996 | 11:59 a.m. Second-grader Dylan Frantz is an excellent reader -- of waves. He assesses their size and strength, trying to gauge how rough a ride he's in store for. "I just look at it to see if (the water is) glass smooth (or) swelling," says the 7-year-old, who's been water skiing on rivers and lakes for three years. "He looks ahead to see if it's (choppy) or more swells, and that decides how he stands," explains his mother, Mary, also a skier. But the Boulder City youngster wasn't sure what to expect before recently heading off for the Catalina Ski Race, the granddaddy of all water ski races. After all, it would be the first time he had ever skied on the ocean. So he watched the surf reports intently. Twenty-six-foot swells plagued the waters of the 62-mile course, which ran from Long Beach to Catalina Island. Luckily, they subsided to a mere 5 feet by race day. Nothing this water skiing wunderkind couldn't tackle -- and on one 7-foot-long ski, to boot. Towed by his father, Kirk, who drove the family boat, Dylan zipped past his competition in the 15-and-under division to finish the marathon race in 2 hours and 13 minutes. That was 17 minutes faster than the division's record, which was held by an 8-year-old boy who helped Dylan decide to compete in the race a year ago. "I wanted it really bad," Dylan recalls, flopped on a flowery couch in his family's home, which overlooks Lake Mead. The Mitchell Elementary student is the youngest person in 48 years to complete the race, reserving him a place in the Catalina Race Hall of Fame. Dylan can't figure out what all the fuss is over. After all, he's competed in six previous races and set records before, including one last year when he raced 25 miles on Lake Mead in an hour and 19 minutes. "Everybody would talk to me" after the race, he says. "They'd shake my hand and say, 'Congratulations, Dylan."' But the Catalina race proved to be his biggest challenge. During the first leg he kept thinking, When am I gonna see the island? "You say, 'Oh, I'll be there in 10 minutes' and 10 minutes later you say, 'Oh, I'll be there in 5 minutes."' In a practice run the day before, he made the trip in just under two hours at speeds of around 40 mph. He was slowed a bit during the race for a few water breaks. "Racing is kind of work to me," he says, noting how he prefers "play skiing," a more freestyle form of water skiing. "In races, you have to stay right behind the boat and just hang on," Mary explains. But with play skiing, "He can dance, he can jump. He's just very comfortable and relaxed when he's out there." But he's no speed demon. Because of the sport's danger factor, Dylan and his parents have set his limit at 60 mph. "If you get past 60 mph, you can fall and you can get hurt really bad," he explains. "Most of the time, I just go 50 or 51." Plenty fast for Lake Mead, where Dylan does most of his training. The toughest parts of preparing for a race isn't technical, though. It's sticking to his high-carbohydrate diet. "I had to eat healthy food and I wanted a chicken-fried steak," he says.