ith ten of the fastest race boats arriving in Doha, Qatar, the 2014 H1 Unlimited Hydroplane Series Championship will once again come down to the final race of the season. Three boats enter the Oryx Cup UIM World Championship race mathematically alive for the title hunt and the right to carry the number 1 on their boat for the 2015 season. This will be the fourth time the H1 season will have concluded in the city of Doha and the fifth race on the challenging course that last year saw a huge and spectacular crash result in extensive damage to two of the hydroplanes.
In the 2013 Oryx Cup four boats were racing deck to deck during one of the preliminary heats when disaster struck. Thom Thompson, driver of the U-11 Peters & May, was in lane two, to his outside was Brian Perkins, driver of the U-21 Snoqualmie Casino, in lane three and Jon Zimmerman, driver of the U-9 Jones Racing, and to his inside was J. Michael Kelly, driver of the U-37 Beacon Plumbing. Allfour boats were entering turn one when Tom Thompson’s boat lost steering and slid out a lane into the side of the boat of Perkins. The force of the collision tossed Thompson’s boat up and over Perkins, and then barrel rolled to a violent stop. Both drivers were checked and released by the on-site medical team and/or the hospital with minimal injuries; though their boats were not so lucky.
The U-21 suffereddamage to the left side deck and to the cockpit and the U-11 had its entire right side sponsor torn off and engine thrown out. The remainder of the race when on with little incident and was eventually won by Jimmy Shane, driver of the U-5 Graham Trucking.
The races during this season in the H1 Unlimited Series, leading up to Doha, have also been filled with its fair share of action - starting with the season opener, the Madison Regatta, in Madison, Indiana.
The weekend started with eight boats entered, but
the field was quickly shorted. The U-22 Webster Racing driven by Mike Webster, never left the trailer because of mechanical gremlins and the U-12 Miss DiJulio driven by Greg Hopp never left the dock but once for a preliminary heat – but that run was cut short because the canopy sealing the driver into the cockpit kept opening at speed, and at 200 mph, that is not something you want to happen.
The winner-takes-all final ended with a controversial call on the U-6 Oberto driven now
by Jimmy Shane, for being too early to the start of the race, resulting in the J.
Michael Kelly, U-1 Graham Trucking, being
declared the winner. The water was so rough
during the weekend that all boats left
Madison with some kind of damage that
would need to be repaired quickly for the
second race of the season the following
W
winner-takes-all final ended with a controversial call on the U-6 Oberto driven now by Jimmy Shane, for being too early to the start of the race, resulting in the J. Michael Kelly, U-1 Graham Trucking, being declared the winner.
The water was so rough during the weekend that all boats left Madison with some kind of damage that would need to be repaired quickly for the second race of the season the following week.
The second race of the season, the Detroit APBA Gold Cup, resulted in a major change to the H1 rule book and damage to the U-9 of Zimmerman. All eight boats entered into Madison made the trip to Detroit, however the field was again cut down quickly. The first boat to have issues was the U-11 of Thompson who blew an engine during qualifying – and when you blow a jet turbine engine, that engine is done for the weekend, if not destroyed beyond repair. The U-12 also received damage in qualifying when the gear box began to tear itself apart, and throw
pieces of itself into the engine causing extensive
damage to both pieces of equipment.
"Point-to-point races which involve acceleration and speed are constantly dripping with danger."
- Spencer Lund, The Adrenalist