Bigger Boat Testing

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I skipped Silver Lake Everett last weekend to go testing in the Tri Cities (WA) on a lightly larger scale.

I accepted the opportunity to work on the crew of a brand new Unlimited Hydro this year that will be running the 3 west coast races. The boat is the "Miss Lakeridge Paving", is owned by Greg O'Farrell and Jon Cheetham (owners of Lakeridge Paving co) and driven by David Williams. Yes, the same David Williams who runs the Hydroplane and Race Boat Museum in Seattle, and is one of the founders of the HARM J Hydro Project. Also, Greg O'Farrell's grandson Gunnar is one of the kids involved in this year's J Hydro class. And, probably because one outboarder wasn't enough, Tony Perman (known to most of you as "Propnuts" here on HR) is on board as another crew member.

Working on something this big makes you really appreciate the simplicitiy of our outboard racing. Still, it's a very cool experience and l look forward to the oportunity of going racing with this team.

We spent Friday and Saturday testing along side the Beacon Plumbing team, which is owned by another ex-outboarder, Billy Schumacher, and driven by Jean Theoret, who has some of the biggest cojones I've ever seen in a race boat.

Anyway, you can see the pics of our testing session, starting from a 1 am rollout of the shop last Friday, to our aborted last test run (due to a faulty igniter) on my Webshots site at:

http://rides.webshots.com/album/559313106PhFfIi

Enjoy,

R-19

[John Howe]

Boy, the U37 really looks good! Many, many,...many, moons ago I got to spend a day crewing for Bill Muncey on a new Atlas Van Lines Unlimited here in Miami when a regular crew member missed a connecting plane flight. I happened to be loitering around the pits when crew chief Jim Lucero mentioned to the local race director that he was short handed, so I got drafted. I pretty much spent the day "swabbing the deck" after Bill would take it out for a few laps. I think I still have the team T-shirt that I wore that day, though I`ve no doubt it has probably really shrunk, where ever it is.

Good luck to the "Miss Lakeridge Paving" crew!

[bill boyes]

Nice looking boat. What is the history of the rig?

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U-48 History

Nice looking boat. What is the history of the rig?

This particular hull was built in 1996 and debuted midway into the seaon as the U-100, Pico American Dream, driven by Dave Villwock. Later, Hopp Racing leased the boat from Leland and ran it as the U-15. Later, it was known as "Troxzilla", and driven by Terry Troxell. It ran as the Beacon Plumbing/Lakeridge Paving in 2005 and Jerry Hale blew the boat over, breaking it in two. It was rebuilt in 2006, and raced as the Lakeridge Paving as part of the Leland team, driven by Jeff Bernard at Tri Cities, and Terry Troxell in Seattle.

The hull has 9 career wins and has turned qualification laps in the high 160's in the past, so it definitely has potential.

You can alo see some videos on our testing sessions at http://www.hydroinsider.com

R-19