Columbia Cup, Friday-Sunday

The fastest speeds so far this season have been registered at the 2008 Lamb Weston Columbia Cup in Tri-Cities, WA, providing the U13 Graham Trucking a spectacular venue as always, to prove that the 20 year old hull can still run with the best of them. J Michael Kelly, driver, took to the 2.5 mile course on Friday mornings test session leading off, and turned a blistering 161.550, but the time was disallowed because of an N2 violation. However later that day, Kelly took to the water again and qualified the green and yellow Dave Bartush’s hydroplane with a speed of 158.699mph.

That afternoon, the lineup for the Dale Thomas HVAC Dash for Cash saw the following boat camps run for the money.

  • U-3 Hoss Mortgage Investors Too
  • U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto
  • U-13 Graham Trucking
  • U-17 Our Gang Racing
  • U-50 Miss Albert Lee
  • With the U-3 Hoss Mortgage Investors Too not making the starting gun, the Dave Thomas HVAC Dash for Cash became a four boat race. The U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto led from wire to wire edging out J. Michael Kelly in the U-13 Graham Trucking and the U-50 Miss Albert Lee driven by Brian Perkins. Rookie Kip Brown in the U-17 Our Gang Racing used the water time to accumulate more laps toward qualifying as a driver. 

    A little bit of wind has picked up on the Columbia River course at the 2008 Lamb Weston Columbia Cup during the Saturday morning testing session, but it didn’t seem to affect the speeds of the boats that hit the water.

    With the format for the racing on the Columbia River allowing for Heats 1A, 1B and 1C to be ran on Saturday; however a throttle linkage came undone on the U-13 Graham Trucking which caused the Detroit-based craft to miss Heat 1B. The team is disappointed that they were unable to accumulate any qualification points.

    Only three boats made the one minute gun in Heat 2B as the U-7 Formulaboats.com was unable to get its turbine engine started in time. 

    The U-13 Graham Trucking driven by J. Michael Kelly was first to cross the start finish line in lane three, but the U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto/Miss Madison used the inside lane to claim the lead at the exit of the first turn. David pulled away from the field and won by one and half rooster tails. 

    The U-37 Beacon Plumbing and the U-13 were side by side in lap two battling for second place but the inside position of U-37 driver Jean Theoret allowed him to finish a rooster tail ahead of Kelly. 

    Heat 3A saw the U13 entry face some of the fastest boats in the fleet as the, U-1, U-7, U-13, U-37, U-50, U-100 all raced for the checkered flag. Leading them across the line JMK took lane 4 at the start and ran with the Elam and Beacon as they played their game of cat and mouse. Mike holding off the rest of the field waiting for one of the two boats in front to make a fatal mistake and take the checkered flag away from them. Finally settling for third and garnering the much need points to get into the final. 

    Gremlins have been chasing the U13 all year long with a propeller issue in Evansville, and now at the start of the provisional the boat made a loud shuddering sound and stopped dead in the water, the cause, a thrown prop. 

    Next week the fleet travels to Seattle for the Chevrolet Cup on Lake Washington.

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