roseburg2007

Roseburg "Race over the Rapids" 2007
Friday evening.

Previewed twice with Paul Bagshaw in Harry Sargent's boat. The river is low, even after all the rain last weekend and the beginning of this week. It's too low to race all the way past the fairgrounds to the I-5 bridge. We will be doing the short course this year. It IS possible to make it into Stewart Park, but the risk is too great, especially the area where you would have to start for the run back down. If you had any trouble getting on step, you would immediately be down amongst a pile of big brown donaghers. Thats big hard, gnarly rocks. So we are doing the short course.

I should be able to run the entire course, both ways, without lifting once. Might have to get out just a bit at the very top, there is a spot there that requires a couple of quick direction changes around a rock. That's what I am going to try anyway.

The boat show was at the Winchester Deli. It's commonly known as Dan Mahoney's bar, but the official name is the Winchester Deli. All those boats in a line looked pretty good. Fun place too. Lots of spectators, a Calcutta, bbq, fun.

We have a new team headed by Duane Carmont racing the ex-155 boat as 55 in the big block FX class. So we now have North Idaho Duane, South Idaho Duane and New Duane. I talked to Duane and his navigator, whose name I will get and put here, not that he didn't tell me, and of course my mind is sieve.

Terry O'Keefe and Russ Hoisington are here with A-211 with a fresh motor. Paul Bagshaw and Rob Soule running their tried and true combination, with a tunnel ram this year, A-277. Paul is kind of getting pulled into little pieces from trying to put together and promote this race and at the same time Unpredictables race efforts. He has a cell phone glued in his ear and it rings all the time. The Unpredictable team including Dan Mahoney is doing double duty, most crew chiefs just work on the boat but Dan also puts up pit fences and helps set up the beer garden.

Saturday.
Rain was expected and predicted for Saturday, good news, we got no rain. Thank you. A race without rain. Yeah!
Here is the starting roster:

A CLASS

#277 Unpredictable � Driver: Paul Bagshaw  Navigator: Rob Soule´

#211 Riptear � Driver: Terry O�Keefe   Navigator: Russ Hoisington

#169A Liquifire � Driver: Brodie Miller   Navigator: Harry Sargent, Jr.

B CLASS

#163 Tuff-n-Nuff -  Driver: Duane Labrum  Navigator: Gary Labrum

#169B Liquifire � Driver: Dwain Longellow  Navigator: Troy Hickok

#188 White Lightning � Driver: Steve Hanlin  Navigator: Steve Jensen

BBFX CLASS

#69 Addicted � Driver: Sam Heath   Navigator: Chris Dyer

#55 Revelation � Driver: Duane Carmont  Navigator: Patick Mitton

#43 Thunderbolt � Driver: Jeff Bradley   Navigator: Kenneth Bradley

SBFX CLASS

#13 Yellow Hammer � Merv George   Navigator: Paul Luhrs

#19 Red Bird � Driver: Mike Egbers   Navigator: Eric Hamburg

#07 Hasta La Vista Baby � Driver: Greg Boice  Navigator: Shane Adams

#16 Wocket � Driver: Jesse LaForest   Navigator: Lynn Mouser

#15 Footloose � Driver Ron Papst    Navigator: Ed Drew

#27 Makin Bacon � Driver: Scott Marshall  Navigator: Randy Slone

SPORT JET

#05 Totally Wicked � Driver: George Edwards   Navigator: Tad Bell

#08 Baby Bud � Driver: Gary Weaver   Navigator: Ed Perlenfein

That's 17 boats, a good turnout. Several situations surrounding the Roseburg race changed this year leaving Paul and Judy Bagshaw shouldering the load with help from Scott and Candi Marshall and others. The end result was a well brought off race, with a program, purse money, and drag boats, food and even a beer garden. And no rain. Yippee, no rain!

The short course is just under eight miles long, and you can run pretty much flat out so each leg is over quickly. There is a big ugly rock hiding in the middle of the second corner, I made a point of spotting it each time. It didn't move, but by golly I checked it each up and down leg!

The first two legs ran without incident, everybody made it up and back.

On the third leg up, Lynn and I exploded our driveline in the chute at the top of the fourth corner. If you have raced it or know the river, it is a bumpy chute with a big rock at the bottom, about four corners up from River Forks park. It has a solid wall of brush on the North side, and a bunch of choppy water at the bottom. There are two rocks in the chute out towards the top. The line at this level is pretty much right along the brush and then inside or outside the two rocks which are about 50 yards apart.

The driveline let go with huge bang, the motor hit the rev limiter, I thought I had hit a rock and took the intake out, but there were no rocks where it happened! The motor responds to the throttle, but the boat doesn't. No steering response either of course, the boat starts to turn gradually to the right away from the brush and is slowing, turns between the two rocks at the top of the chute then spins out. Banged the bottom a few times, but not hard and we were stopped. We floated a ways and banged into a few more rocks, unbelted, checked the back to make sure we were not sinking, then grabbed the paddles and start flogging the river because we were drifting right back into the line, and it is not too awful wide here. We paddled like crazy to get out of the line and then had to keep paddling to stay out. Several boats went by and we held up both hands up to let them know everything was ok, keep on trucking. Floated down out of the chute, paddled off to south side of the river and tied onto an overhanging tree.
We were about 150 feet downriver from were we had ended our race last year. The Umpqua hates our boats, and us but I don't care, I am going to keep coming back until we finish a race.

It WAS a great place to watch everyone come back down the chute and through the bumpy spot. Ernie Fields, the water Sheriffs deputy for Grants Pass towed us back to the park after the sweep boat had gone by. Thank you again guys. I had occasion to tow Ernie and Brandi's race boat a couple of times years ago at a demo run, and he returned the favor.

In the break we changed out all the busted driveling pieces and we were ready to run the last two legs. Somewhere along in here White Lightning had a problem, Steve told me that something inside the motor was trying to escape and had cracked a head, the crack visible from the outside! They were done for the weekend. Sounds majorly bad too.

One more good up leg, then on the last leg of the day, about a third of the way down, our motor switched to it's seven cylinder mode after a big pop back through the carb. Lynn watched the gauges like a hawk and I pedaled it all the way down, hoping to avoid having to ask Lynn to paddle for a second time on the same day. We made it, although very slowly, only about 60mph, Greg Boice having caught and passed us before the finish.

The exhaust rocker stud on #1 had broken off at the head, both pushrods for that cylinder had vanished, gone somewhere, the insides shot out of the two lifters and migrated into the pan. The spider that holds the lifter alignment plates down was bent way up but the plate was still on the lifters so they didn't turn sideways and eat the cam. That was a real good thing! I didn't know why a rocker stud would break like that but I decided I would not just replace that one and go out to test by experiment whether the rest would hold, likely destroying the rest of the motor on Sunday. Just another weekend of racing the Umpqua for us, over before we got to the finish on Sunday. I will go there and complete one more race before we are done. So far it�s one for six.
 

I am sure you are getting tired of hearing all my hard luck stories: I know I am sure getting tired of having to write them!
Hopefully these things that go wrong can help someone reading about them take a few lessons in how not to race. The lesson for this weekend is: check everything you have the ability to check. Replace everything you can that might wear out, like two season old valve springs (my guess at this point for the reason for broken rocker studs, but I just don�t know). Have things like driveline flanges magnafluxed, it's not that expensive.

Sunday.

Sunday started out cloudy yes, but looking like it would clear. There are 15 boats left running from the field of 17.
The new racers, Duane Carmont and Patrick Mitton in BBFX #55 are holding their own. A bobble or two but all in all, doing a very, very good job for their first race ever. Sam Heath�s race efforts have come alive, Addicted #69 just flies. That boy is fast this year! Terry and Russ, #211 Rip-N-Tear are looking pretty racy too, they go faster and faster each leg they race.

At this point it looks like #277 Unpredictable leads A-class, #163 Tuff-N-Nuff leads B-class, Sam is ahead in BBFX, #13 Yellowhammer is leading SBFX and #05 Totally Wicked leads SJ.

Four legs were run safely. No rain! Not a darn drop!

Here are some cool things I saw this weekend:
One was Sam coming around the corner, heading for the line, his motor surging, coughing, trying to quit then going uhf, and stopping as he took the flag. His battery was flat as a $4.00 flip-flop and the motor had been trying to quit most of the way back. He won BBFX by just forcing the thing to finish anyway!
Another was seeing Jeff and his dad roaring across the line on the last leg in the once again re-constituted Thunderbolt, the gamest boat I have ever saw. And they built it Poor Boy style!
Watching Terry and Russ building their confidence as they push Rip-N-Tear harder and harder every time they start it up, Duane and Patrick feeling their way through what must be the daunting experience of racing a truly fast boat under a bunch of new-to-them rules.
The Miller/Longfellow team has somehow turned into a fleet of boats and trailers, all painted the same. Makes me think of F1. But those paintjobs, wow, beautiful and perfect.
The Labrums boat just howls when it goes by. It was really liking the weather here, and you could tell by the way it sounded.

The final results, in order of finish.

A-class
#277 Unpredictable
#211 Rip-N-Tear
#169 Liquifire (Brodie)

B-class
#163 Tuff-N-Nuff
#169 Liquifire (Duane)
#188 White Lightning

BBFX
#69 Addicted
#55 Revelation
#42 Thunderbolt

SBFX
#13 Yellowhammer
#19 Redbird
#07 Hasta La Vista Baby

SJ
#05 Totally Wicked
#08 Baby Bud
 

Gotta say also, Paul and Judy did an absolutely fabulous job putting the race together this year. Thank you.

Times & Points

TIMES FOR ROSEBURG RACE              March 31 & April 1, 2007
                                           DAY 1                                   DAY 2          GRAND TOTAL
Driver   ClassBoat #  Leg 1 Leg 2 Leg 3 Leg 4 Leg 5 Leg 6 Total Leg 1 Leg 2 Leg 3 Leg 4 Total
Bagshaw  A         277 5:08  4:52  6:01  4:54  5:11  4:59 31:05  5:23  5:15  5:11  4:58 20:47       51:52
Miller   A        169A 5:55  5:35  5:54  5:30  5:52  5:32 34:18  5:44  5:25  5:45  5:27 22:21       56:39
O'Keefe  A        211A 5:55  5:42  5:45  5:20  5:38  5:20 33:40  5:35  5:17  5:35  5:18 21:45       55:25
Hanlin   B         188 5:19  5:02  9:32  8:48 11:55  8:44 49:20  9:05 12:29  9:06  8:42 39:22     1:28:42
Labrum   B         163 5:43  5:26  5:42  5:22  5:45  5:29 33:27  5:39  5:20  5:35  5:17 21:51       55:18
LongfelloB        169B 6:11  5:40  7:15  5:35  8:28  5:25 38:34  5:42  9:17  5:45  5:32 26:16     1:04:50
Heath    BBFX       69 5:48  5:29  5:49  5:31  5:53  5:31 34:01  5:46  5:28  6:58  6:02 24:14       55:18
Carmont  BBFX       55 6:30  5:57  6:17  5:48  6:19  5:40 36:31  6:02  6:23 13:46  5:32 31:43     1:08:14
Bradley  BBFX       42 6:47  6:16  8:37  9:07  9:51  8:59 49:37  9:06  9:50  6:29  7:48 32:17     1:21:54
Marshall SBFX       27 6:42  6:18  6:33  6:07  6:33  6:13 38:26  6:41  6:22  6:44  6:14 26:01     1:04:27
George   SBFX       13 6:15  5:52  6:13  5:51  6:15  5:50 36:16  6:11  5:49  6:12  5:48 24:00     1:00:16
LaForest SBFX       16 6:37  6:10 11:45  9:41  6:45  7:58 46:13 10:19  9:50 10:22  9:43 40:14     1:26:13
Boice    SBFX       07 6:28  6:11  6:29  6:08  6:26  6:07 37:49  6:28  6:04  6:37  6:08 25:17     1:03:06
Papst    SBFX       15 6:37  6:13  7:33  6:11  6:40  6:09 39:23  6:36  6:12  6:30  6:09 26:01     1:04:50
Egbers   SBFX       19 6:12  6:01  6:12  5:50  6:07  5:47 36:09  6:03  5:47  6:04  6:39 24:33     1:00:42
Weaver   SJ        08 13:34 10:05  8:13  7:33  8:27  7:35 55:27  8:12  7:40  8:03  7:38 31:33     1:27:00
Edwards  SJ        05  8:12  7:36  8:09  7:33  8:08  7:30 47:08  8:04  7:32  8:04  7:29 31:09     1:18:17
 
 

Roseburg Race Points, points to date

     A-Class    Day 1  Day 2  Total

Bagshaw     #277  370.85  400     770.85
O�Keefe     #211  304.17  300     604.17
Miller      #169A 250     225     475

     B-Class

Labrum      #163  350     400     750
Longfellow  #169B 291.67  300     591.67
Hanlin      #188  133.34    0     133.34

     BBFX

Heath        #69  400     300     700
Carmont      #55  300     306.25  606.25
Bradley      #42   75     156.25  231.25

     SBFX

Egbers       #19  383.35  331.75  715.11
George       #13  316.67  325     641.67
Boice        #07  206.34  229.75  436.09
Papst        #15  141.02  197     338.02
Marshal      #27  146.69  137.50  284.19
Laforest     #16   90.35    0      90.35

     Sport Jet

Edwards      #05  400     375      775
Weaver       #08  300     325      625