The Sunday morning test session proved to be a real rough time for the Dave Bartushs’ U 13 Spirit of Detroit entry. “I credit him with everything,” said Bartush of team crew chief Curt Tavnner. With just moments to spare, the team got the problem figured out and got onto the water to do battle in heat 2C. J Michael Kelly did a great job of holding off the challenge from Greg Hopp in the U100 Mirageboats.com entry.
Heat 3B was to be the spoiler for JMK, when the U9 Connover Insurance driven by Chris Bertram tried to squeeze between the U37 Beacon Plumbing and the U13 they bumped. Later in the same heat the 13 went dead in the water. “We have video on the boat now, and you can see where the exhaust came off and when that happened it fried the motor, and then we had a questionable call, but hey that’s boat racing.” Bartush stated. Before he went down, video from the boat showed the exhaust section coming apart from the engine.
With the engine shutdown, a situation was created where the team needed to enter the consolation and win just to be the trailer in the winner takes all final. The U21 driven by Brian Perkins jumped the gun allowing JMK to have a picture perfect start, giving him no competition for the rest of the race. “We’re still alive, and this is not the way we wanted it to be. But we are in the final. I just want to put pressure on the guys in front of me, if any of them make a mistake I will take advantage of it,” stated JMK after the heat of racing.
Running as the trailer boat in the final heat, Kelly had his hands full as the rest of the field was way out ahead of him. But, the talented young driver was not going to be looking at the back of the front line long. Working his way up through the rough waters of the back of the pack, J Mike reeled them in like reeling in a salmon off the Columbia River. “We had another up and down weekend” said J Michael, “We went from good, to interesting then we broke. I hate coming in through the back way to get into a final.” “We had our hands full” stated Bartush. “I’m happy with where we finished. It was a fun race to watch.”
On the prospect of racing in Seattle JMK had this to say, “The water is rough there, we like rough. We are going to be coming in fresh.” “All in all the boats doing real well, now if we can get on the front line….” Bartush surmised.