San Diego CA – The U13 Graham Trucking entry, driven by J Michael Kelly from Puyallup WA, made the trip down the west coast to challenge for the SAN DIEGO BAYFAIR powered by the UNION TRIBUNE cup this weekend.
Before highlighting the weekend of racing, let’s take a look back over what has to be considered not a stellar year for the U13 team.
Evansville, IN – Racing in the final of the Freedom Festival the U13 entry was running smoothly. This was after a minor repair to the hull earlier that day had been performed, as the boat would not respond to the shut down procedure and Mike had to make a hard left turn so as not to slam head on into the retaining wall. Unfortunately he did scrape the right sponson on the wall and that had to be repaired. Running hard up the back chute in the final heat the propeller let go, causing major damage to the rear of the boat.
“When a propeller blade breaks away at 10,000 rpm with 2,000 horsepower pushing it against the mass of water, things go crazy.” J. Michael Kelly said. “The entire boat shook violently until I hit the emergency shutdown fuel switches.” Luckily, the long shaft, gear box and engine all escaped without damage. The structural components at the stern, the transom, shaft brackets and pretty much everything in that immediate vicinity took the bulk of the damage. It was decided that the boat would have to skip Madison and travel to Detroit to begin immediate repairs.
Madison, IN – With the extensive damage to the boat in Evansville, the team skipped the annual Indiana Governors Cup. “We hated to have to skip the race, but there was no way we could have made it to Madison,” stated owner Dave Bartush. The team left Evansville and headed straight to the shop in Detroit to repair the boat.
Detroit, MI – The 100th running of the American Power Boat Association’s Gold Cup is the premier event on the ABRA circuit. With repairs to the boat finished just in time to be able to compete in the race, the Graham Trucking team pulled the green and yellow boat into the pits late Friday afternoon. The hydroplane looked better than ever, however the Detroit Yacht Club presents the Spirit of Detroit team was not able to get onto the water that afternoon. Early Saturday morning the boat was lowered into the water and J Mike took the mighty 13 through a shakedown cruise. Everything looked a okay!
Sunday however was to be another story. After one heat of racing the wind started to pick up, ABRA officials decided to put a 10 minute hold on racing to check and see what the weather was going to do. Mother Nature had different plans for the Sunday event as ten minutes lead to another and another. After that, the rest of the afternoon was a wait and see game with the wind taking first place. This meant that the year’s event was a blow out and next year will be considered the 100th running.
Tri-Cities, WA – If it were not for bad luck the U13 might not have had any luck at all. Gremlins had 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, yet another thrown prop. All the team could do was to stare in disbelief as the hydroplane was towed back to the docks.
Seattle, WA – After yet another week of repairs, this time not as extensive as the Evansville mishap, the team made it to Seattle, west coast homeport for the team. The team is coming off another week of repairs as the boat suffered damage at Tri Cities last weekend. “It wasn’t quite as much work this time to do the repairs, but it was still a lot; especially since the crew is still tired from the earlier repair. I asked Cal Phipps to stay here for the week and he really helped us a lot. He helped with the Evansville repairs and that’s why we let him take the boat out for three laps in Tri-Cities. He did 151 mph and looked very comfortable in the boat. Our onboard camera shows him with a big smile.” Stated U13 owner Dave Bartush.
As the propeller turns, or maybe not? “So there’s a brand new prop at the bottom of the lake that probably has a heat on it,” Kelly said. “On the plus side, we didn’t bust up the boat, but we did lose $15,000.” That’s a quote driver J Michael Kelly made to the media after returning to the dock with once again another propeller broken. Luckily this time the shaft broke and the prop fell to the bottom of Lake Washington.
As reported last year, many in the media have been making very positive comments about the 29 year old U13 driver. “J Michael Kelly has more shear ability than any of the drivers out on the course” as commented Chip Hanauer on the KIRO TV 7 broadcast Sunday afternoon. That basically sums up what many in the media thinks about the young man from Puyallup, Washington.
Racing at Seafair is likening to racing in front of the home crowd, as many of the teams do call Seattle home. Two third place finishes and a second in the prelims was still not enough to get into the winner take all final, so J Michael had to run in the provisional and as luck, if you want to call it that, would have it a malfunctioning hatch caused the boat to be sidelined yet again.
San Diego – Racing on Mission bay in sunny southern California the U13 qualified at a respectable 155.755mph. Finishing fourth in heat 1A and third in heat 2B followed by a third in heat 3B the Dave Bartush owned hydroplane fought mightily against the likes of the U5 formulaboats.co, the U6 Oh Boy! Oberto and the U37 Beacon Plumbing all day long.
In heat 2B mechanical problems again plagued the yellow and green hydroplane. “The V-brace bracket broke which caused us to lose the wing,” said Kelly. “I knew something was wrong when it started to get hard to drive and I could see one of my vertical wings in my mirror. Without the wing, the nose tends to dip, and I had to use a different wing strategy to keep the nose and my speed up.”
This ends the racing season for the U13. Look back from time to time for updates throughout the winter season to keep up with Spirit of Detroit!
One last thing, the U13 team wants to congratulate the U6 Oh Boy! Oberto on winning the National High Points Championship. Look out next year we will be gunnin for ya!