Headline News – Walled Lake Thunder Journal (Volume II) – June 2013
Eli Whitney reporting
MACH (Mid American Championship Hydros) Series 2013 Lid-Lifter!
Eastern invader puts headlock on 2.5Litre Stock competitors!
Joe Less decimates strong 5 Litre Stock field!
Fast Eddie Too Jugger-naught rolls on, but who dat lurking in the roostertail?
Kuhr/Walls/Kreitzer provide 7Litre thrills and chills!
English/Richards/Thompson dominate!
New name stirs the drinks: Old Crow rules NM!
ThunderCats loose on the Lake – can they swim?
J-hydro in your future?
Plus Vintage exhibititors gone wild!
At the north end of the lake, in Downtown Walled Lake, Michigan, action abounded virtually non-stop Saturday and Sunday, June 08-09, 2013 as APBA Region 6 Inboard Hydroplane, APBA Vintage Hydroplane, and APBA ThunderCat racers congregated for the 6th annual Walled Lake Thunder Regatta, the 2013 MACH Series opener. Over 50 of these speed addicts provided plenty of thrills, chills, and even a near-miss spill (doesn’t count, this is a no-spill zone) for the standing room only and enthusiastic spectators on Walled Lake Beach, Walled Lake itself, and Bayside Grille, whose own John Semma, along with the City of Walled Lake and a number of associates generously sponsor this intro to summertime fun. Todd McQuade, Jules and Jim Sechler, Sam Anspach, Tim Heuston, Ray Dong, Mike Weber, Steve Spisak, Jennifer Grigg, Box 21, Andy Gauresimo, Matt O’Quinn, Ron Snyder, Jack Meyer, Laurie Allen (they tied her to the pit gate, what did she do wrong to get that duty?), Dick Delsner (Mr. Wide Mouth of Sports, OK, that’s not fair, he is Mr. Pronouncer, which is similar to announcer, only he is a PRO!), Rich Evans, Barry Pray, Daryn Rollins, Ken McGregor, Paul Poledink, Billy Noonan, this list goes on and on and we cannot name them all: Thanks for all your efforts, the event can only be described as a resounding success! And a big shout-out to the spectators, many of whom bought pit passes to get close looks at the racing hardware, without the fans, this don’t happen.
Now for some classy facts (I call ‘em as I see ‘em, any disputes, well, you get to do the writing next time!):
2.5Litre Stocks – S-80 got first place. All weekend. Gene De Falco up, dodging storms in the east, or out for a late spring excursion, don’t know which, but glad he came! This can only be described as applying a headlock on the rest of the class, but it was not easy, as Keith in Joe Kreitzer’s S-67 Impossible Dream, 2013 MACH Series champion Scott Thompson (Holland, New York) S-41, and Jennifer Falcinelli in her S-55 kept him honest.
Noteables: S-67 came back from a blowover at Dayton testing, John Jenkins’ repair job held well, and the boat shows speed. It’s racy, Keith gets his start timing down, watch out!
S-41 just chugs right along, charge the battery, check the oil, add some gasoline, let’s go racing! Adds up the points, that’s how you win championships, being there and racing all the heats. Dependability works.
S-55 – Jennifer’s dream come true, racing again. That boat is newly rebuilt, new engine, some prop help from Cadi Reiss, a little help from many of her friends, brother Rich, father Rick, Wayne Shagena, hey, it made it and looks good!
5 Litre Stock – yes, Joe Less dominated. The E-600 Centless too many to count showed up with a new black paint scheme, wide track “suspension” (hey, Walled Lake is very near to Pontiac, the home for the late, lamented Pontiac Wide Track suspension automobiles, so, it’s “wide track”), fresh engine, and Joe. The formula cured as we all watched from the shore and 8 other E class drivers watched from behind. Joe thrashed ‘em this weekend, but not without some competition from Tom English (E-75), Jeff Sankuer (E-17), Todd Liddycoat (E-97), Mark Manos (E-51), Doug Benyon (E-61) and another Don Less entry, Centsless 12 (E-500), Andy Keogh (E-13)and Carl Adams, a new guy, E-23. Troubles haunted Todd, especially on Sunday, Mark’s hose-r-y slipped a little (hot ride, huh, sonny?), and the E-23 had teething troubles, but everyone else was hot on Joe’s roostertail!
Notables: E-17’s new to the boat driver capsule and subtle-tees – flat black paint made it look mean! Great job improving the driver safety zone! Boat runs nice, too. Jeffrey and Life are contenders, watch out.
Andy Keogh is back – the rust is getting shook off rather quickly. Another contender for the throne of Region 6 5L stock king!
E-75 looks like Tom English found another notch on the throttle pedal, a step beyond wide open – looks good!
E-61 Doug comes up from Louisiana to visit his former Michigan haunts, brings along his hydro to play. That’s dedication, or is it a vacation? One thing they always have in the bayou is fun, and Doug always brings some with him!
1 Litre Mods – Fast Eddie Too, first place. Uh, but not all the time? Looked to me there was an upset this weekend, as Sean Bowsher gave them a run for the money. Got him at the finish line? Could be. Well, answer to that is no, he did not. Fast Eddie Too on top. Wait. There’s more. Marty Hammersmith‘s Y-4 is coming on hard. He is lurking, ready to pounce. Wait up, there’s still more. Chris Ritz’s wooden Liddycoat hull has ‘em worried. Chris just needs to get more than 7 minutes run time out of his ignition. Made Dan Kanfoush in Jim Sechler’s Fast Eddie Too (Y-1) get up on the wheel in that heat, and this writer thinks it would have been too late, that was a winning pass. Alas for Chris, the Minute 7 Gremlins were along for the ride, saving Y-1’s bacon.
Notables: the Y class competition is steadily closing up, providing great on water action. Kudos to all the Y boat guys!
Jim Sechler and Dan Kanfoush are quite a team, and as a team, they work hard. It shows, too. How they’ll work harder to keep ahead of the competition I find hard to see, but work harder they will!
Jeff Maur and daughter Kathleen had some boat troubles, they are right in the thick of things, but broke down, they are working hard and will be back for more!
Joe Sovie in the Y-44 – good golly, that engine is LOUD! But, it runs, too. One more Y hull for Y-1 to worry about!
7 Liters – Grand National Hydroplane (GNH) – big boats, big engines, big noise, big speed. Yep, five of them provided all that and a little extra at times. How did it go? Stevie Kuhr up in big Steve Kuhr’s E-317 Irishman got first overall, winning one or two of the four heats.; Dan Walls parlayed a spectacular victory in Saturday’s final (why spectacular – we’ll get to that later) into second overall, while Joe Kreitzer’s exciting drives in Cadi Reiss’ GNH 515 One Way managed a very competitive third overall, with at least one dominating win in the heats and the rest second places. Both Saturday and Sunday Final heats were very competitive and crowd pleasing races!
Notables: GNH-11 Andy Denka brought out his former Wolfe racing Kalson hull with big block engine, a several time championship boat in it’s own right. And, it’s fast. John Jenkins piloted the craft to a sizeable lead, but engine woes put them on the trailer. Watch for more, as Andy plans to compete at each of the Region 6 events.
GNH-12 – teething problems for Alex Findlow’s hull put driver Dave Archiable on shore running the team radio for Danny Walls. They’ll be back, this west coast hull (new to Region 6) is a challenger indeed!
GNH-68 – Danny got his first GNH win Saturday. Greg Kreitzer escorted Dan back to the dock and threw him in for the traditional first win dunkin’. Now, Dan has won races before, mainly in his dad’s S boat. But, this was the first GNH win. Dan, if you did not want to get wet, you shoulda let up on the loud pedal, it’s all your fault. Well, Greg is hard to resist when he has a grip on you, so I don’t know if Dan had much choice, so, bath time. Hey, it’s Walled Lake, nice water and a sunny day, not so bad after all!
Spectacular – well – it seems there was some misaiming off the turn that went on, things were crowded on what was working up to be a fabulous three wide balls-to-the-wall start, when both Joe and Stevie went ‘tail ridin’ on Dan’s roostertail. Both came down OK, and chased Dan to the finish. Joe was the errant party, as he owned up to it as soon as he reached the dock, no harm done (this explains the third place overall mentioned above). But, we all watched closely, it got everyone’s attention! You know what? We call this racin’, and that’s what they were doin’: RACIN’!
Tell you something else, kudo’s to Referee Jack Meyer, as he kept that race going instead of stopping it, noting that there was no wreck, just action.
2.5L Mod – Fat Chance, that boat name rhymes with success in this class. George English and Royce Richards field the potent Randy English tuned Staudacher design hulls that are world class (championships, records, MACH series, Region 6, etc.). They lived up to it. With Tom Thompson driving, they just win. They work hard at it , too, just like other teams, maybe a little moreso because there are three of these running under their banner! They sandwiched a trip up to John S’s Kawkawlin shop on Saturday night for a quick repair in between all the action! Got some trophy hardware, MACH points, and some bucks for the work. Great job! They are not the whole class, their competitors are keeping them honest.
Notable: Kevin Kreitzer (A-67 Blue Devil) got a different prop, worked well, got a great start and great finish to go along with it. A small ignition problem in Sunday’s final dampened spirits a little, but when the trouble was located and found to be, well, miniscule (distributor cap), well, faces brightened all over! Kevin’s coming on hard!
Debbie Welte’s Geezerboat A-23 acted up all weekend. When it ran, it ran good. When it didn’t, they had to throw in the towel, engine work coming up. She’ll be back!
J.P. Squires helped out with the A-7 boat all weekend, running errands, work on the boat, radios for Karen or Alexis (I think they both drove), more work on the boat, yet managed to have a good time and promised to come back next year! We all say Hello to Debi and Dutch, who hopefully are NOT fighting forset fires in dry Colorado, but going racing. Gotta remind everyone that Chamberlain, South Dakota’s regatta is on, it is scheduled for August 17-18, 2013, and will feature Y boats and S boats and E boats, if you got an urge to see the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore, head on out for some high plains hospitality! It’s a drive, but I guarantee that Dutch will see that you have a good time!
Gotta offer condolences to Mike Cashin, as he lost his sister and her daughter to separate illness’s this spring. Was good to speak with him in the pits, as he also brought the A-8 for Tom Bergman to drive.
Greg Isaac and his A-47 came in from the east coast, but had some lingering problems that did not give them a lot of water time. I think they’ll be back for more.
National Modified (NM) – one V8 boat in the pits, with additional entries from 2.5L mod made for some racing. The A boats tried to keep up, but the new NM-357 Old Crow of Andrew Christopher showed the way with driver Dan Kanfoush (that’s Lt. Dan according to the cockpit). It’s really new, as this event is it’s first race (they did test at Dayton in May to make sure it floated). It is a Staudacher design hull, Miller built, wood material, 368 Chevy small block, gasoline fueled hull with a ton of potential. Lt.. Dan says it is fast, and will be a threat to any NM out there. Listenin’ out west and east, guys? This one goes on plane with ease, and it races fine.
Notable: kudos for the stepups from the A boats. Really, it is not a stepup, as fuel injected 2.5L mods are legal NM’s, so there are no point shennanegins going on here.
Note to the IRC: Old Crow is a new boat and a new owner. Significant investment. Others have made significant investment in a couple other classes. Now is not the time to tell these guys to go home, you as a group need to wake up, get rid of Rule 23.6.1! Editorial comment by this writer. If you feel like I do, tell your commissioner!
Dan Kanfoush: now that you have moved up from S boats to Y boats to A boats to a fast NM, perhaps you should ask for a promotion from Lt., like maybe they could make you a corporal? It’s the least they could do for you.
ThunderCats – Can they swim? Of course, cats can swim, but they usually don’t want to swim. Well, these T’Cats are no different, they came to race and they did not swim! LeMans type dock start, a great equalizer. Then, the green flag waves, and off they go for ten lap heats! Their modified oval course kept them in front of the spectators all the time, with fun for all. Except, the one boat that did not start at the dock. Y’see, they sit at the dock with engines off. They have a warmup period prior to lining up, so it ran then. But, it flooded or something, and heads were hung low. Next heat, try agin, well this time it’s a go and all’s well. Eight of these inflatable hulls, with either stock or modified outboard engines, wing around their course with reckless abandon, the driver tilling the motor and a rider jumping all over to maintain hull balance and speed. It looks like fun, and after witnessing a video from the hull of one of the T’Cats, it sure looks like fun! Mark Hodorek’s group of guys always have fun racin’ and then helping each other to fix what’s broke, they are a valuable part of APBA boat racing and the Thunder would not be as thunderous without them.
Is there a J Hydro in your future? If you are 9-13 agewise, I’d say yes, and you can join in with Shelby Bowsher out on the course, hitting speeds up to 38 mph in these stock outboard hydros. Powered by a Mercury outboard with a restrictor plate under the carb to limit horsepower and APBA issued props (at the race site) to keep costs down and improve competition (it’s called let the kids race, not the parents, no Little league syndrome here). Shelby ably led off the program each segment with a 2 mile heat, got the course broke in, made sure all the big racers would be OK, gave her approval and had a lot of fun. It’s hard to keep this girl out of that boat, just ask Sean!
Vintage hydros – enough vintage hydros were present to make up two separate flights twice each day! These older hulls represent the former days of APBA Inboard racing, dating back as far as the 1946 Ventnor. Boats represented most all classes of inboard, ranging from the 90 cubic inch T-2 Little Miss Hillwinds and T-59 Scraps to the beautiful GP owned and driven by Tom Bertolini. The exhibition laps are enjoyed by all!!
All in all, it was a great weekend of boat racing. Box 21 had a quiet time (a good thing), salvage had some work to do keeping Andy busy at the dock (not very busy, but enough). Some chills and thrills, but mostly hard competition, lotsa noise and enjoyment. It was good to open up the MACH 2013 season and the racing in Region 6 at this great little race place, Walled Lake, Michigan!
Let’s look forward to Thunder Version 7 in June, 2014!