OK, now that I am somewhat recovered from the weekend of SAW racing here is my highlight reel:
The usual Legg Lake SAW cast of characters were present including Mark and Kim Grim, Don Maher, Howard Welch, Eldon Bouchie, Brian Buaas, Darin Jordan, Boyd Marshall, Mark Ferreira, Tony Heller, Thom Hammer, Brian Neal, Bill Oxidean and Steve and Jack O’Donnell, Jim Johnson, Scott Bouchie and a guest appearance by Martin Truex Jr.
As usual Kim Grim’s cooking was outstanding and her recent acquisition of a new larger BBQ for Xmas (thanks Mark) allowed her to cook giant steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs and carne aside enough to feed a large army. It is virtually impossible to leave hungry.
I brought four riggers to cover Q, S, T, and X in the hopes of besting my own Q hydro record and upping the S hydro record which has stood for many years. Mark Grim was running his X-hydro and his newly built CMB27 powered GX-2 rigger for some shakedown runs. Maher had his new twin out for some shakedown testing as well when the water was too rough to run SAW boats in. Maher also had his gear drive X-hydro out. Brian Buaas brought his P hydro with the goal of upping his existing record and setting a P-Ltd mono record with a bone stock Revolt. Darin brought his fleet of sub 20” boats including a M2 mono, N1 mono and a M2 rigger. Bill Oxidean also brought down his fleet of small boats including a M2 rigger, N1 Rigger , M2 mono and a N1 mono. Darin and Bill were fighting for tenths of a mile an hour. A straight pass versus a crooked pass makes a huge difference when it takes 4.5 seconds to trip the lights. Eldon brought out his Thunderboat and crackerbox for some fun runs. Boyd showed up with his fleet including dedicated boats P, Q, S & T offshore. All with twin power systems. Mark F brought a single T mono to try and take top honors away from Doug Smock. Brian Neal showed up with a pair of identically built HPR 135 cats with twin high power drivelines. Brian made a number of runs ranging from 100 to 130mph and got some good stick time trying to manage the power available in the big offshore cats. Jack and Steve O’Donnell make a brief appearance to run their A hydro and support Brian Neal. Jim Johnson brought his Phil Thomas P-Ltd sport hydro and Thom Hammer made a brief appearance with is Thomcat mono’s.
Some of the highlights:
-In trying to get the Q hydro record average sped over 130mph I connected with a large waterfowl at 120+mph. Amazingly I would have to score the battle a win for the waterfowl. My rigger was mortally wounded and the bird swam away. When the contact occurred we saw something bounce several times and skip across the water. I thought for sure it would have been the head of the bird. Turns out it was the 6S battery and perhaps luckily as the rigger floated with no hatch to stop flooding and only one sponson left. After years of running electric SAW riggers I have learned that two or three riggers for one class is a good idea in case the worst happens. Luckily I had built two identical riggers in case this happened. After settling on a 128mph average in Q and the bird strike in I switched to S with my carbon rigger. Come witching hour on Sunday I made a crooked first pass at 129mph and a follow up pass at 123mph also crooked which capped an excellent weekend for me.
-Brian Neal had the best High and Low moment happen twice. 120+ mph passes followed by 120+mph stuffs which caused the cowls to fail and cats to sink. The first cat stuffed and sank right in the middle of the traps and was salvaged quickly with some damage to the hull. The second stuff and sink happened on Sunday after he had set a record in T O/S and was also trying to get an average of 135mph (his goal). This time the crash occurred in the deep section of the lake and took about 2 hours of dragging to salvage. The crash was pretty severe as one can imagine stuffing at 125mph. Even though Brian sacrificed a lot of hardware this weekend he was genuinely happy with his achievement and had even loftier goals for the next event.
Brian Buass ran his P hydro most of the weekend with numerous passes in and around 115mph striving to hit the 120mph mark. He spent a great deal of time making small changes to props and checking data in between rounds on his Castle equipped rigger. He too make some spectacular passes right at witching hour upping his 115mph record set earlier in the weekend to 116 followed by 117mph. As is customary with Brian he was willing to help with set-up and prop selection including helping me with both of my record passes at 130mph and 129mph in Q and S respectively. Couldn’t ask for a better team mate!
Darin and Wilmer were fighting neck and neck with the small cell count boats in M2 and N1. Looking at the number of runs on the laptop it seemed between the two of them half of the total runs made were with the small boats. I would love to tell you more about what they did but I honestly could not keep them straight with the number of passes they make.
Mark Grim ran his X hydro in the mornings when the air was good and make some 110 to 120 mph passes like they were easy in till he ran too close to empty and as soon as the rigger ran lean it grabbed another gear blowing the tail and stuffing. A little damage side lined the boat from running anymore that weekend. Mark also broke in a new CMB27 in his Grim Reaper tub with passes in the 90’s. I believe he still had a turn fin on the boat and was just running his “medium” speed prop. Kim Grim took a break from cooking to run her Jersey Skiff for a new record with an average speed of 54mph.
Boyd who has only been straight lining for about 2 years has been bitten pretty bad by the bug and brought a flotilla of cats to run although he mostly concentrated on P and S O/S. Driveline problems and other gremlins reared their ugly heads but Boyd was able to set the Q offshore record above 100mph. In P O/S he made a 100mph pass but could not back it up. We know he will be back in the fall with some revised systems to avoid the gremlins.
Mark Ferreira brought out a Delta Force mono to run in T mono trying to break the elusive 100mph mono target. Water line issues followed by subsequent drying periods of electronics forced Mark to re-plumb the entire cooling system. Mark made several passes in the high 80’s and perhaps one or two in the low 90’s although a back up pass was just out of reach. The boat looks very solid and will give Mr. Smock a run for his money at the next event.
Steve and Jack O’Donnell brought out their very fast A hydro which showed a good bit of potential.
Howard Welch ran his Backlash in GX-1 sport hydro and make a number of passes in the 90’s.
On Saturday Scott Bouchie showed up with Martin Truex Jr. for a little bench racing which turned into a long afternoon of bench racing.
That’s what I can remember from the weekend. Again thanks to Mark, Kim, Howard, Brian, Darin and everyone who attended the event. A special thank you to Tony Heller for capturing video. You can’t beat the weather, good water, racing buddies and Kim’s cooking. We’ll see you in the fall.
Tyler
