Sunday, July 08, 2007
Madison citizens ecstatic over new boat's promise
Well ... it was almost a storybook finish. Steve David in the O BOY! OBERTO briefly traded the lead with Dave Villwock in the MISS ELAM PLUS for the first lap, but the orange, white and purple U-16 proved to be too much and pulled away to a comfortable lead and final heat victory in this year's Indiana Governor's Cup. J. Michael Kelly scored an impressive third place in the U-13 SPIRIT OF DETROIT, despite starting from a trailer position, and Jean Theoret was caught back in the pack with a fourth place finish. Both Jimmy King in MISS CHRYSLER JEEP and Greg Hopp in MIRAGEBOATS.COM failed to finish.
As I mentioned earlier, this has been a good day. In spite of the tight corners on the course, the drivers raced with their heads and there were no collisions and no blow-overs. It was good to see Fred Leland's hull running well, as he's had some poor racing luck the last couple of years. J. Michael ran very well also, and it seems that his team is showing progress. The new OBERTO looks fantastic, ELAM is the same consistent threat, BEACON will be as tough as ever as will Ed Cooper's CHRYSLER JEEP. The big disappointment for this weekend are both FORMULABOATS. The U-1 didn't fare well in the elimination heats with two thirds and a DNS, and the U-5 had a second but with an N2 violation followed by two straight DNS's. Who woulda thunk that the defending national champ and world kilo record holder would both have such a bad weekend? Not me ... but there's lots of racing still to come.
Thanks to my big brother, Jeff, I'm going to come watch the Gold Cup next week in Detroit. I should be there on Friday and Sunday - hope to see you!
