Richland competition strong

A-400 battle looms - SuperMod Rookie driver on podium!

By Jim DeFord

RICHLAND, Wash. (June 17, 2006) — The #17 Cool Tool boat returned to Richland on Saturday with two rookies proudly on the podium on a perfect Eastern Washington day. Though it wasn't perfect for some of the teams, the Ackerman's smoothed through their licensing session and proceeded right into the finals and into a second-place podium finish in the SuperMod class! Pretty darn impressive considering they were running heads-up against the the Peterson brothers in the hard-to-beat #9 Bernin' H2O. The Petersons have won their last 6 out of 8 races dating back to the start of the 2005 season.

In the A-400 class, Doug Hendrickson and Hanna Rice popped right off the trailer in Marsing to claim the first win of the season. They were the class of the race and nobody even came close.

Then come the demons.

First a DNS and then a poorly performing engine would leave the #01 En Fuego team frustrated. Then an unsual DNF struck home. Talking to Doug in the pits he said, "My mind is on the motor and not on the track."

Kyle Patrick was premiering his new "Patrick Special" A-400 motor and he was also struggling with various tuning issues. Kyle moved up to A-400 from the SuperMods.

In the meantime, Dave Pfeiler was laying down consistent times and Bill Root showed some very respectable times, so this was no cakewalk. However, they would both DNF their first session out in the eliminations and Hendrickson's bad luck prevailed with another DNF, so it was up to the Jack's Bright team and Patrick/Harris to play this one out at Richland.

Kyle had been ahead of the Brights the entire afternoon, but with the engine tuning issues this was not a guaranteed win. Kyle pulled his fastest time of the day and a very nice looking run to beat Jack&Jack by nearly two-seconds for his first USSBA win of his career! Congratulations to the entire It's All About Me team!

In the stock class, Steve and Brenda Rice — Mr. & Mrs. Consistency — showed Chris Sandoval the door with run after run of steady laps within a few tenths of each other after the first round of qualifications. Mulvaine and Schaffer were just a tick behind Sandoval so we can look for some hot competition in the stock class this year.

In the SuperBoats our collective USSBA hats are off to the Screamin' Eagle team of Lee Rice and company. At the June 3rd race at Marsing they had a very scary crash that snarled and twisted the nose of the boat into an ugly mess. Lee was quoted as the damaged boat was being loaded onto the trailer, "We will be back."

And he was back! In a freshly repaired and newly painted boat ready to rock and roll!

The Hi-Tech Redneck team of Hartwig/Fowler struggled through qualifications with a DNS and a DNF, though making it comfortably into the finals. Rice and Healy ran consistent laps and looked impressive in the newly refurbished Eagle.

However, it was once again Tom Nelson and Linda Ensminger that clearly showed Rice and Hartwig to their respectable trailers with laps that were nearly 5-seconds faster than anyone else.