Klamath 1998 June 5th, 6th and 7th

Friday June 5th was tech inspection, racers dinner and calcutta.

New at tech this year: Everybody's motor was pumped for displacement. Tim Harding performed this

test with a large ominous looking black tube. Kinda looked like an m79 grenade launcher. Anyway, you

had to pull all your plugs then back the rocker arms off on a cylinder. Tim hooked this tube up through the

plug hole and then you motored your engine over. The tube reads out one cylinders volume. Cool! I wasn't

prepared, so had to borrow a plug wrench, (lame) and then the flange on those %#$@!^ headers kept me

from pulling a couple of the plugs. Vise grips to the rescue. I now know the displacement of one cylinder

in my motor. It's 42 point something c.i.

June 6th First race day.

Roster:

4 Unlimiteds

2 A- boats

6 B- boats

3 C-boats

The Klamath River is very high this year. I watched the level on the net all week and it went from 12.5 feet

on monday up to 13.2 feet on friday. The result is the lower river is one big freeway, Coon Creek and up is a

continuous series of rollers.

Good close racing in all classes. Jeff Laird was out on the up leg with motor problems. Ouch! Glory, Leigh Johnson's

old boat is back! It was nice to see Glory running again. Two young men from Corvallis, Mike and Noel, were

campaigning her, thanks guys.

All the Unlimiteds finished with no mechanical fatalities. I can sum up the four boats like this:

Donnie Smith's boat, a blown big block Chevy (Yes, a 6-71 blower!), 357 Magnum, is an all american type

boat: raw power and all kinds of clever innovations. Donnie is an ex-drag racer. It even has a parachute on

the back of the blower! I love the sound of Donnie's boat, it makes me think of a locomotive for some

reason. You can hear a whole lot of power being made. He ain't afraid to run it, either. Phyllis, Donnie's

navigator, is a sweetheart and kind of puts the finishing touch to the whole thing..

Justin Boice's 316 boat is the future of unlimiteds. Dual Turbos, valid aerodynamics and an obviously well thought

out machine. The whole effort is organized and run very professionally. Justin sent me a psa for the race

program and I was very impressed by the emphasis on "team". The Boice Marine boat is capable of 128 mph!

Talk about blowing your hair back!

Tim Hardings 333 is an injected Big block. No blower, no turbos. It has a very interesting adjustable nozzle system

designed and built by Tim himself. It's not at all like a Place or Jet-o-vator, it's a complete new design by Tim. The

boat is disgustingly fast and Tim is a really excellent driver. He is also apparently a thoughtful and contemplative

kind of guyr: That nozzle system he built is simply the best solution to a problem I've seen in quite a while. It

takes the whole cone as used by jet racers and articulates it with a beefy lever and hydraulic motivation. It let's

him trim the boat for varying conditions as encountered whilst racing. It works! Any drag racers or records

attempt people reading this? You ought to check into this nozzle. Tim owns Precision Machine in Gold

Beach Oregon.

Then we come to 354 "Kiwi". This is really interesting. Kiwi was purchased by a "Guamanian"? who has been

racing off-road trucks. He was tired of the expense and the extroirdinaire logisitcs required to race off-road trucks

in Mexico, all co-ordinated from Guam. Kinda of like organizing and supplying an expeditionary force in Quebec

from Bogata, Columbia. He was searching the net for "off-road" and somehow ended up on this page. Brian made

a few calls to Chub Morris, the Klamath Chambers Vice-President, and decided to check it out. He came to the

Grants Pass race and there met Mark Cromie. A deal was in the making! Anyway, I got to meet Brian and his crew

this weekend. They are going to be a great success in jetboat racing. Saturday they worked their way up speedwise.

(Kiwi is a rocket!) It's apparent they have lots of racing experience plus a very healthy dose of good sense.

Sunday I think they were getting Kiwi up to were it likes to run, they were 3rd up river! The best of luck guys and

I'm glad you found your way to the sport. They will be racing at Gold Beach. I wonder what they'll name her?

It's odd as hell to see Mark on the beach waving good bye!

I'll be posting the official times as soon as I get a sheet... Please check back.