USSBA Race Review

Woodland race a wild one!

1400 fans and Mayor of Woodland turn out for a very exciting event

By Jim DeFord

WOODLAND, Wash. (Aug. 29, 2006) — The Mayor of Woodland greeted over 1400 fans at the gate. Mrs. "Mayor" helped serve food to the cheering throng. An estimated $1600 cash was donated at the parking gate and barrels of canned food were donated at the entry to track.

The Longview Daily News had such headlines as: "Illegal Boat Races Return to Woodland" and the forums on their site were pretty busy with 99% in clear, positive support of the event that brings countless dollars into this tiny community 21 miles north of Vancouver, Washington. The event made the front page of the Sunday paper.

The crowd was quite vocal and really got into the event as the boats screamed around this beautiful facility. Kudos go out to Jeff Strong and everyone else who worked very hard to make this event a success. A job well done. The racing was incredible and the event itself ran as smooth as a Rolex.

Stock Class

We started out with Chris Sandoval trailing the Rice's by just 10 points and left—after an uncharacteristic DNF by Rice—with Sandoval 10 points ahead. Mulvaine and Schaffer ran their strongest race of the year trailing Chris by less than a second in the final eliminations. Only 30 points separate the three so the Nationals with double-points could prove to be very interesting in this class.

Super Modified

The Petersen's were going for their 8th consecutive win, but with a backup motor. They popped the bottom-end of their primary engine at Richland running a sponsor ride. With that being said it was time for everyone else to pull out all the stops to try and pounce on this advantage.

Ty Applegate ran hard all day long and the boat was running fast, but in the end they could not pop the Petersen bubble and finished second. The Ackerman's were right behind in third and John Gray finished fourth. Ron Fisher ran a very respectable fifth followed by Smith and Zimmerman who were having carb problems. Yates was 7th and Elliot rounded out the top 8. Castillo and Healy did not qualify for the top 8.

Group A-400

Kyle Patrick entered Woodland with a 10-point lead over Dave Pfeiler. Bright was 50 points out and Hendrickson was 60 points down.

There was a lot at stake this raceday and the drivers and navigators were on the edge the entire day.

Kyle's "pop" in his engine returned again and may have cost him a few places as he ended up finishing fourth which is his lowest finish since race #1. However, with Dave Pfeiler finishing fifth, Kyle leaves Woodland with a 20 point lead over Dave.

Jack n' Jack Bright ran their best race of the year and finished on the podium on third.

Frank Toftemark and Kasy Starkel smoked the track in Alan Rush's boat (that is FOR SALE) and finished second, further complicating the intense points battle in this class. Bill Root threw large parts out of his oil pan and was done for the day, finishing 6th.

Dave Pfeiler and Marvin Wright had a significant moment when just into the last round of qualifying they clipped an island and had no hope of making the next apex. The boat went onto shore at the top of the course and flipped hard on the driver's side of the boat.

After the boat flipped over Dave was slumped in his seat and not moving. Marvin immediately tended to Dave as the safety workers rushed to his aid with the paramedics following closely behind.

Dave was conscious the entire time but had the wind knocked out of him when the boat landed hard on the driver's side.

Dave finally emerged unhurt and raced the next round. See the video of Dave and Marvin's crash HERE.

You can also see the photos of Dave & Marvin's moment on the photo page HERE.

After several DNF's due to missed turns, a damaged boat at Richland, Doug Hendrickson and Hanna Rice finally ended their day with the checkered flag in their hands. But, not without some excitement. In round two of the eliminations, Doug clipped the bank on the south side of the course but recovered and finished. The last run of the day would be their fastest and their second win of the season was long in coming

There will be some very hard racing at Richland on September 9th as all these teams are in the running for the 2006 Group A-400 Championship.

Super Boats

Attrition strikes again. There is no team in this class that has not been hit by a mechanical gremlin of one or another. Woodland would prove no different.

Lee Rice was warming/tuning up his boat in the morning when the supercharger detonated sending parts flying. When I spoke with Lee he suspects that at Marsing when the throttle stuck that the supercharger was starting to disintegrate lodging parts into the injectors. Nevertheless, that left Lee on the trailer for the day.

Darrin Hartwig was having some oil pressure issues and ran one qualifier and one elimination, which leads to...

Tom Nelson out on his first run, looking snappier as ever when all of a sudden he slowed with an obvious mechanical issue as the Piranha motor spit and complained all the way back to the pits.

At first they thought it was just a couple of rocker arms, but as it turns out the camshaft snapped and that put Tom and Linda on the trailer for the day.

All Darrin had to do is run a clean lap and he'd walk home a winner. He later said how he hates winning races that way, but....That's Racin'!

So, be sure to call the neighbors and wake the kids and make it over/down/up to Richland, Washington for the USSBA Nationals on September 9th.

It's going to be awesome!