Chris Denslow’s gallery of the 2009 APBA Gold Cup held July 10-12, 2009 at Detroit, MI

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the 2009 ABRA Indiana Governor’s Cup held July 3-5, 2009 at Madison, IN

Walt Ottenad’s gallery of Saturday action at Tastin’ & Racin’

Jeffrey Dahl’s gallery of vintage hydroplane testing on Lake Washington.

Walt Ottenad’s gallery of the 2008 ABRA San Diego Bayfair Unlimited Hydroplanes.

Walt Otttenad’s gallery of the 2008 ABRA Chevrolet Cup at Seafair: A very LONG weekend…

As a member of the U-13 Graham Trucking/Spirit of Detroit crew, we had high hopes coming into Seattle after a disastrous Tri-Cities outing where we broke another prop and hurt the back of the boat again (though not as bad as Evansville). (continue reading…)

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the Unlimiteds at the Chevrolet Cup at Seafair.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the Unlimiteds at the Lamb-Weston Columbia Cup.

Lisa Courneya’s gallery of the Unlimiteds at Tri-Cities.

Once again the U-13 did its best to make the number unlucky, breaking another propellor in the consolation heat and damaging the back end of the boat. This time was not as devastating as Evansville, due to the fact that it had been rebuilt in Detroit and was practically new from the engine bay back. (continue reading…)

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the 4-Seat hydro “American Maid” at the Lamb-Weston Columbia Cup.

The 2008 APBA Gold Cup was called no contest due to high winds that forced an end to competition on Sunday afternoon. All images are from heat races and testing sessions.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of Unlimited hydroplanes at the Gold Cup in Detroit.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of Unlimited action at Madison, IN.

Walt Ottenad’s gallery of the opening event on the 2008 ABRA calendar in Evansville, IN.

This was my first race in Evansville, and as a member of the U-13 Spirit of Detroit crew, I was looking forward to a great weekend. After hundreds of hours of work in the off-season, the boat was looking as good or better than it ever had and we had great expectations. All that was not to be…

Qualifying started on Friday JMK clocked a 144.837mph lap, then upped it to 149 later on. Friday night was spectacular for the weather we had – lightning, thunder, tornado sirens and MASSIVE amounts of rain (AMAZING…)

On Saturday, bad luck struck in Heat 1B which the U-13 missed due to the hatch not being able to be latched. The Spirit of Detroit ran well to a second place finish in Heat 2B behind Jeff Bernard in the U-5, but when JMK came back to the dock, he couldn’t shut the engine down due to an obstruction in the engine bay. As he was pointed straight at the dock, he realized he couldn’t shut down and steered to his left to avoid the dock and the divers, running into (and onto) the concrete stairs that lead from the pits down to the Ohio. As spectacular as it looked, it only resulted in minor damage to the right sponson…

After Mike Johnson got the sponson back in shape, Heat 3A looked like another chance to make things right for the weekend, but again we ran into problems when JMK couldn’t get the U-13 to plane without ingesting enough water to put the fire out! With one minute to go, we weren’t on plane and so had to pull to the infield and shut down…

Even after all the bad luck and misfortune, we made it into the final heat as the trailer boat. The boat was looking good and running well (though not making up too much ground due to the condition of the course), when we all heard a “boom” and saw the U-13 go dead on the backstraight. Damn.

When JMK brought it back to the dock, we could see that the prop threw a blade, resulting in massive damage to the transom (1/4′ thick aircraft aluminum split from side to side) and tons of damage inside all the hatches all the way up to the engine bay. After pulling the engine and gearbox and getting it on the trailer, the decision was made to take it to Detroit for repairs in time for the Gold Cup, missing the Madison Regatta altogether. Hopefully we’ll have much better luck in the hometown race than we had on the Ohio…

Chris Denslow’s gallery of Unlimited action at Evansville, IN.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the christening of the U-50.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the vintage Miss Thriftway and Miss Bardahl at Tastin’ N Racin’.

Chris Denslow’s gallery of the U-17 and U-37 at Tastin’ N Racin’.

Walt Ottenad’s images of Saturday’s action at Tastin’ N Racin’.  This was the first time Unlimiteds (U-37 & U-17) ever ran on Lake Sammamish, and combined with Vintage Unlimiteds, ULHRA, APBA and PWC racing, it was a pretty cool event, just sucked that it rained all day…

Mark Sharley’s images of Vintage, Unlimiteds, PWC’s and all the APBA action from Lake Sammamish.

Chris Denslow’s images from the Vintage Unlimited test on Lake Washington, April 17th, 2008

Lisa Courneya’s images from the Vintage Unlimited test on Lake Washington, April 17th, 2008

Lisa Courneya’s images from the Unlimited Lights test on Lake Washington, April 17th, 2008

Walt Ottenad’s images from the Vintage Unlimited and Unlimited Lights test on Lake Washington, April 17th, 2008