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Lynch Line, June 2008 With apologies to a terrific voice talent (Don LaFontaine) "In a world where costs of entertainment continue to rise, ULHRA fights that trend"! What I mean by that is simply this. Entertainment provided at ULHRA races is FAR less expensive than many alternatives. You can read story after story about the high cost of major league sports and major motor sports........not just the ticket prices but also the lodging, the cost of travel, concessions, etc. At a ULHRA event you'll find much more in the way of "family priced" entertainment........in some cases admission is free while at other sites the admission costs are certainly "family friendly". Bring the kids to a ULHRA event. It's a day long or weekend long (your choice) entertainment package that you can afford to enjoy. Next on the schedule is an event that is destined to become a destination race. You've heard of Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, Crazy Horse and of course "Sturgis". Joining that roster of impressive destinations and events in South Dakota is "River City Racin's" brand new Pepsi Racing Power Cup Challenge, July 12th & 13th in Chamberlain-Oacoma SD. How do you get there? Just find Interstate 90. The twin cities of Chamberlain & Oacoma SD are situated on the Missouri River where I-90 crosses in south central South Dakota.....a couple hours west of Sioux Falls and about 3 hours east of Rapid City. From a driving standpoint it's roughly the same time and distance to Chamberlain-Oacoma from either Seattle or New York City and about the same driving time that Seattle hydroplane racing fans experience going to San Diego CA. Of course if you can't attend the race in South Dakota, ULHRA will provide at Chamberlain, as we do at all of our race sites, a very affordable alternative: Free, live web casts of every heat at every ULHRA race, right on this website. Just check the home page every race weekend for times and a link to the webcast. Chamberlain-Oacoma's Pepsi Racing Power Cup Challenge starts "The Gauntlet"; a stretch of 5 races in 5 weeks which is the most aggressive scheduling ever attempted by ULHRA, Inc. From South Dakota our teams will head west on I-90 to picturesque Flathead Lake at Polson, Montana for the Anderson Radio Broadcasting "Radio Waves Regatta". Dennis Anderson's radio station group is the title sponsor and promoter of this event and just like the efforts in South Dakota, the Polson event is coming together very impressively. Both sites are "raising the bar" for first time ULHRA events and fans are in for terrific weekends of racing and affordable family entertainment with the Unlimited Light Hydroplanes (UL), the Thunderboats (G) plus at South Dakota the Jersey Skiffs will be on hand and the Lighter than LIGHTS hydroplanes will be in Montana. Plenty of activity has been ongoing for the ULHRA teams since the last race at Richland WA in mid May preparation for the upcoming 5 races. Serious repair work is being wrapped up on both the UL-13 of J. Craig Fletcher and the UL-929 of Vince Xaudaro and Jim & Karon Wilmot as they prepare for "The Gauntlet". The damage occurred following J.Craig's boat going dead in the water and subsequently on the next lap a steering failure occurred on Xaudaro's boat and the 929 ran into and on top of the 13. Neither driver was seriously hurt because the ULHRA mandated safety systems did their job and the drivers followed the directives of Chief Referee Rick Sandstrom and ULHRA Rescue. Boats can be repaired or replaced; drivers cannot. Safety is a no-compromise program within ULHRA and professional motor sports in general. These next 3 races, South Dakota, July 12 & 13, Montana, July 19 & 20 and Tri Cities WA, July 25, 26 & 27 will determine the Unlimited Lights’ lineup for the Graham Trucking Cup at Seafair in Seattle, August 1, 2 & 3. It's the most prestigious race on the ULHRA calendar with the largest attendance (about 200,000) and seven hours of live television (about a million viewers) over KIRO TV Channel 7 in Seattle. Many ULHRA teams currently are homeported in the vicinity of Seattle and this is the race they point toward. However there is a limit to the amount of space in the Stan Sayers Pits and the Seafair organization has been forced to restrict the number of UL teams to fourteen (14) for the Graham Trucking Cup last year and again this year. That's a big change. In the early days of ULHRA and the Unlimited Lights, getting a field of only 10 teams at Seattle was a challenge. Now the challenge is to find ways of limiting, in a fair fashion, the UL field to 14 teams. Similar to how things are done in NASCAR there are benefits derived by teams that compete on the entire circuit rather than at one or two events. The ULHRA Board of Directors established a points program where team owners are rewarded for attending events while racing exclusively with ULHRA. In addition, teams earned bonus points for attending two long distance events that were held at Phoenix AZ in late April and the exhibition program at Pickwick Landing TN in early May. Ten of the 14 positions at Seafair will be decided by these owners’ participating and bonus points. Leading the field for the first 10 slots are Wil Muncey in the UL-00 Trafficade and Mike Sadlon in the UL-89 Lake Trash Apparel. Muncey's team has been at all 3 events so far including the exhibition while Sadlon was at Arizona and Tennessee. James Deel of Ohio earned a signficant number of bonus points by participating at the Tennessee exhibition however because he’s not been a regular ULHRA competitor and with the time & cost of traveling from Ohio to Washington State, Deel may choose not to compete at Seattle. Among the other teams, UL-72 Miss Boat Electric driven by Kayleigh Perkins and the UL-14 Miss Critical Logic of Paul Becker along with the UL-39 Rouly Heat Exchangers driven by Joe Souza, the UL-20 Smetco Overtime of Bob Smets and the UL-11 94.5 ROXY presents Power Punch Oil Supplements driven by Michael Flaherty should qualify for Seattle, barring major problems at the next 3 races. If those 7 teams reach Seafair, three other teams that did not go to Arizona or Tennessee teams will qualify through the owners points program. Among the contenders for these 3 slots include the UL-13 of J. Craig Fletcher, the UL-929 of Vince Xaudaro, and the UL-40 King & Bunny's driven at Richland by Brian Perkins along with teams that will be starting their 2008 season at Chamberlain-Oacoma and Polson MT. I didn't mention the UL-15 Graham Trucking G. T. – Happy Go Lucky in the group above. That's because the team of Greg & Jerry Hopp is not competing in ULHRA "exclusively". In fact the Hopp team has raced in ULHRA and other events for years. Teams certainly have that option and several ULHRA teams do so. So, while they don't get the additional "owners appearance points" that are available to exclusive ULHRA teams, Hopp Racing is among the teams competing for the final 4 slots at Seafair through "total points" including the bonus points they received for competing at Phoenix. The UL-15 will likely qualify. The Hopp team has 3200 competition points and trails the UL-72 by just 125 points for the UL National Championship race. How close is that? One fifth place heat finish is worth 127 points. The UL-8 Baker Equipment team driven by Kip Brown at Richland WA and the UL-93 Trafficade Desperado driven by Randy Hurst at Phoenix are among other teams that can qualify for Seafair via total points. These final 4 slots are expected to be hotly contested between many teams such as the UL-98 Miss Atomic Screen Printing driven by Charles Xaudaro, the UL-3 Time Machine driven by Chris Grant, the UL-6 of Kerry Beynon and Al Carstensen, and the soon to be completely repaired UL-12 of Bob Schellhase, the former American Eagle hull that was seriously damaged in a flip at Port Angeles last October. It's all about "earning" a position at the Graham Trucking Cup at Seafair in Seattle. No longer can a team merely "show up and race" in Seattle. If a ULHRA team hasn't entered ULHRA races before Seafair they won't be able to run the race at Seafair. Starting at Chamberlain-Oacoma, Kayleigh Perkins will no longer be the only woman racing in the Unlimited Lights’ series. Elizabeth Wolfe, sister of Marty Wolfe will helm the UL-93 Trafficade - Desperado at South Dakota in her Unlimited Light hydroplane debut. Marty Wolfe will be in South Dakota with the G-93 Johnson-Wolfe Trafficade entry as part of what's expected to be a 4 boat Thunderboat fleet at Chamberlain-Oacoma, and a 5 boat fleet at Polson. ULHRA's Thunderboat Series is for hydroplanes larger than Unlimited Lights with bigger, all supercharged engines. The G-teams will be chasing series point leader R.W. Dick Lynch in the G-13 Jet Chevrolet.com Tempo which leads the Thunderboat teams with 1700 points after 2 races. Next in line is the vastly improved G-329 Block Head Machine presents My Town Motors driven by owner David Warren with 1200. Third in points but a real championship threat based on their performance so far is the Shockwave Racing Team out of Olympia WA and their Schucks Auto Supply G-17 driven by Dustin Echols. When the teams get to Polson MT the Alabama based Wiggins Services and Supply G-10 driven by Cal Phipps, which was very impressive at the Tennessee exhibition in May, should be a top challenger in their first Thunderboats point race of the season.
John Lynch |
