RCU celebrates 37 straight years at the Columbia Cup!

The next race on the rc racing calendar is RCU's Columbia Cup, which has been run now for 37 years in a row! Water Follies has put a nice mention on their website for the race.

No U-3 in Tri-Cities and Seattle

It is official now that Ed Cooper will not take his U-3 Piston Powered team out west this year for Tri-Cities and Seattle. He will continue his boycott of the H1 organization on "interpretations" of the rule-book. There is a good article on KNDU's website detailing Cooper's decision.

Sam Cole gave a very short statement regarding Cooper's decision, which does not give any light for him working to get Ed back on the race circuit. "Ed's team, brings an element to the sport that no one else can," Cole said. "I respect his decision and look forward to the day that his team returns. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later."

Ed has released a poll on his website, www.go3racing.com, on how you would rate Sam Cole's performance with ABRA or H1 in the past few years. It is on the right hand column. From the looks of it, Sam is failing miserably. I have made my vote...

Vintage Final Heat Video

Here is a video courtesy of Ron Daum of the final heat of the Vintage class at last weeks Bernie Little Memorial. Congrats again to Mark Hansen.

2010 ERCU Bernie Little Memorial

On Saturday, July 10, I journeyed out to Bellevue Washington for the 2010 Bernie Little Memorial race for ERCU. The small pond we race on makes it a very tight course for very exciting racing! The race was again put on by Jeff and Mike Campbell, two brothers that worked for Bernie on his hydroplane race team at Hydroplanes, Inc. Once again they put on a great race!

All day long spectators witnessed fast racing on the small course which equaled for a challenging day for all racers. This was definitely a course that proved to be a challenge for the racers as some people found it hard not to get drawn up to the score up buoy too early and carry too much speed into the corners.

For the race I dusted off my late father's model of the 1968 "Checkerboard" Miss Bardahl. With old equipment in the boat I did not have high expectations for the weekend. The batteries and speed controller (I am ashamed to say I still have a Chinese speedo in there) have been run in the boat since 2007. This is very old equipment considering how fast electric technology grows from year to year.

The modern final was nothing else but full of speed. Mike Gossler showed his superiority in performance by taking an early lead and not looking back. The Hansen's followed closely, but could not prevail in the modern class.

The Vintage final proved to be more of a challenge to finish than was shown in the Modern Final. After a poor start I found myself (which I only have myself to blame) I was in 4th place before I could hit the first corner. Mark Hansen got into the lead right at the start and did not look back. Ryan Opfer driving Kerry Kjos' Miss Thriftway and Mike Campbell racing the Hawaii Kai III for Kaiser (Ben Keller) gave a great run for the lead, but found themselves upside down after only a few laps. Just about that time the field whittled itself down to 3 boats, including Mark, myself and rookie Chad Bradshaw. It then turned into a parade as we finished in that order.

The final order of finish:

2010 Results

Vintage Final

1. Mark Hansen, 1972 Van's PX

2. David Newton, 1968 Miss Bardahl

3. Chad Bradshaw, 1960 Thriftway Too

DNF Ryan Opfer, 1960 Miss Thriftway

DNF Jason Hartley, 1972 Miss Timex

DNF Gary Simmons, 1960 Miss Everett

DQ Mike Campbell, 1957 Hawaii Ka'i III

Modern Final

1. Mike Gossler, 1978 Miss Circus Circus

2. Mark Hansen, 1972 Notre Dame

3. Gary Hansen, 1974 Miss Cott's Beverages

4. Mike McIntosh, 1994 Miss Budweiser (T-3)

5. Rick Lentz, 1974 U-95

6. Nelson Holmberg, 2009 Formula Boats

DNS Henry Marvin, 1993 Kelloggs Frosted Flakes

Congratulations to Mike Gossler and Mark Hansen for their wins respectivley in the Modern and Vintage class and a big thanks to Jeff and Mike Campbell for hosting an excellent race!

Gold Cup 2010

Don't forget to follow today's racing live at Tampa Digital's website. They will cover the entire day of heat racing live today. The line up for the first set of heats are as follows:

SECTION--Lanes (1,2,3.4)

1A-- 100, 13, 21, 25

1B-- 96, 37, 7, 17

1C-- 1, 5, 22

Looks like they will not allow fighting for lanes in the race...

Cooper's withdraw from Madison

Ed Cooper decided to withdraw his boat and team from the Madison Regatta on Friday of the race due to an interpretation of a testing and qualifying in the H1 rule book. Ed has released a statement on his website, www.go3racing.com, regarding his withdraw from the Madison Regatta:

"The Go3 Race Team withdrew from competition at the Madison Race because the leadership of H1 refuses to follow the written rules of the organization. There is a reason why rules are written and precedents under the rules are followed. One reason for this is that the leadership of an organization cannot change the rules with a "new interpretation". For me the actions of the leadership of H1 are no longer tolerable."

Ed Cooper, Jr.
Owner, Go3 Racing Team

From the sounds of it, the U-3 racing team will not be at Detroit or any other races this year. This brings the boat count down to 11 boats. H1 has not released any written statement regarding Cooper's actions. Looks like the organization is dropping the ball again...

Congrats to Oberto!

Oh Boy! Oberto won the season opener at Madison Indiana. They were able to break there loosing string at their hometown race, which they have not won since 2001. Since that time, they have become a frontrunner, and a favorite at every race. They are now in lead of the points race, which they have been able to claim for the past two years. To view recaps of the race, please view the Tri-Cities KNDU news website. The Madison Courier also has a great article on the team bringing a race victory for the home crowd: click here for article.

Don't forget that Tampa Digital video taped the entire race, click here to view the page of all the heat racing.

Chris Denslow was also on hand to take some spectacular photos. Make sure to view his website and see all of the racing action.

Congrats again to Oberto, and on to the Gold Cup next weeknd!

Lucas Oil Indiana Governor's Cup this weekend!

A field of 13 boats is set for an upcoming race this weekend in Madison Indiana. This will be the first stop in the H1 5 race season.

To follow the race you can listen to a live broadcast of testing/qualifying/racing on the H1 website. Tampa Digital will also be on hand to do live video broadcasting. They will have live streaming video on Saturday 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm, and Sunday 1:00pm to 5:00pm. Click here to tune into the live video stream.