Lynch Line December 2007
2008 season arriving earlier than ever.
Story: The National Meetings and 2007 Season Awards Banquet for ULHRA Inc. are just ahead. On January 19th near Shelton WA the ULHRA membership will gather to review and approve rules adjustments for the 2008 season, the 2008 racing schedule, and to present awards from the 2007 season including Rookie of the Year and 2007 Driving Champion to Kayleigh Perkins. Ms. Perkins drove the UL-72 Miss Boat Electric, along with Canadian Patrick Haworth, to the 2007 Powerboats NW Unlimited Light Team Championship. It's the fourth Team title for UL-72 from Impact Racing and sixth Driver's title since the year 2000. Co-owner Phil Bononcini drove to 3 team titles and 4 driver's titles from 2000 through 2003 and George Woods Jr. won the driver's title in 2004.
As the ULHRA racing program expands it is leading to a compressed off-season schedule and the earliest season start in Unlimited Lights history. On April 25, 26 & 27 Trafficade presents the ULHRA 2008 Season Opener at Firebird International Raceway in Chandler AZ, just outside of Phoenix. It will be a unique event; one that hydroplane race fans will want to place on their calendar.
Firebird Lake presents the closest viewing of any ULHRA race site. With its narrow 1 1/4 mile course and front straightaway grandstands race fans are right on top of the action. At Firebird the ULHRA teams will compete in a full regatta along with the IHBA teams that compete in the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. This combination proved very successful and entertaining during November's exhibition and will be repeated in full race mode the final weekend of April, 2008. You can expect a sizeable fleet of ULHRA teams because........well it's the season opener of course but also after a Seattle or Detroit or Chicago winter it's Phoenix in the springtime! And, as they say in commercial TV.........there's more! The Tire Pros Monster Truck Series will also be competing that weekend so one price admission gets race fans all 3 series. For ticket information contact Firebird International Raceway http://firebird.ticketforce.com/
Jerry Hopp, patriarch of Hopp Racing and the team owner in Unlimited Lights with the longest tenure dating back to the very first UL race in Phoenix in 1995, has undertaken a new initiative spurred by the results of the exhibition in Phoenix. This is a concept that Hopp has toyed with, along with engine builder Ed Trihey for a couple of years and now the effort is fully underway. It's a gasoline fueled supercharged Unlimited Light engine. Hopp says the positive reaction to the blown UL's in Phoenix led he and Trihey along with consultant Glen Davis to pursue the concept. The idea, if successful, would produce a supercharged engine for Unlimited Lights costing less to build and to race than the current methanol fueled UL blower engine and provide performance that should be equivalent to the current carburetor engines in the UL series. The carb engines also cost more to build than this blown gas concept engine. Jerry Hopp ha s been at all levels of UL racing. Hopp says their goal is to develop an engine program that rivals their famed "Big Wally" methanol engine when it comes to reliability.
Jerry and son Greg began UL racing with 20 year old hull (now the UL-98) and a shoestring budget in 1995. They stayed with it till they could afford to add a top of the line hull in 2001. It wasn't until Seafair in Seattle 2002 when Hopp Racing finally won their first UL race with "Big Wally" in the engine well. Since then they've won more races that any team in UL history, plus 4 season championships and two driver's titles, and "Big Wally" has been there for the team with just basic maintenance and very few repairs or broken parts.
Hopp says an exciting aspect of this idea is that teams won't have to "convert" their hulls. In the past, starting with the UL-21 of Thunder Valley Racing back in 2001, teams had to completely change their fuel systems, both adding capacity and changing plumbing and fuel tanks to accomodate a switch from carburetor engines to methanol supercharged engines. With a blown gas engine Hopp says a team could have a blown engine and a carb engine for the same hull, and simply change engines between heats. Jerry adds that Ed Trihey is within a week or two of dyno testing the first engine which will go into a jet drive boat. Then the first UL engine, supplied by Wil & Debi Muncey of Muncey Racing, will be completed and tested for the Muncey's UL-00.....the 24 1/2 foot long former UL-23 of Bob Larimore which the Munceys acquired out of Mexico last winter. J. Craig Fletcher and the UL-13 team will also be supplying an engine for the blown gas initiative. Once testing is completed the concept will be presented to the ULHRA Board of Directors in order to be approved for competition.
ULHRA Video is underway with off season programming. The first installment is a long form interview with Vince "X-Man" Xaudaro and it can be viewed on this website now. Here's the link from the home page titled Past, Present and Future with Vince Xaudaro
There is activity going on in both the Thunderboats (G) series and the Lighter than Lights series. For the Thunderboat program new initiatives are being reviewed by the Board of Directors to help build that series and new teams are being prepared to join the "fleet". At this point it appears there could be as many as 6-8 Thunderboats to open the 2008 season.
On the Lighter than LIGHTS side, new interest has developed in the series and additional race sites may be added in 2008. Barry Eacret, owner of 3 LTL teams has taken on the role of 4 cylinder representative and Bud McKay, the only 2 time LTL Champion, is now the 8 cylinder representative.
McKay is also writing stories and columns for this website dealing with the LTL program titled "On the Lighter Side". Together with board member Debi Muncey the 3 are working on building the program to a new level of participation. Muncey Racing has acquired a new 8 cylinder hull to replace the E-83 that was severely damaged at Silverdale last August. Debi's son Chris Drewes is their UL team's Crew Chief and will drive LTL 8 cylinder entry.
Since 2003 when the LTL program was launched it has had the desired effect. 13 drivers have "graduated" from LTL competition to the Unlimited Lights, Thunderboats, and the turbine series; the latest being 2007 UL Champion Kayleigh Perkins. A 14th graduation will occur this year when Kevin Eacret begins driving the UL-8 for Bob & Kathleen Baker. Eacret will be the "understudy" for new UL-8 driver Kip Brown, the nephew of U-17 owner and retired driver Nate Brown. Kip has been an active driver in Pro Stock and Super Stock runabout classes for quite a few years. He also has seat time in limited hydroplanes and his debut at Phoenix in the UL-8 will preceed him driving the U-17 turbine later in 2008. Brown and Eacret both may get some seat time in the UL-8 at Spring Training, the pre-season test session for ULHRA teams. Date and location for Spring Training are expected to be announced at the ULHRA National Meeting on January 19th.
John Lynch
P.R. Director and "Voice" of ULHRA Racing
