David, U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto zip to victory in Columbia Cup; Seafair on deck

Published 11:19 am Monday, July 29, 2013

Staff reports

Defending national champion Steve David in the U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto beat the field to the coveted inside lane and zipped to victory in the Lamb-Weston Columbia Cup in the Tri-Cities on Sunday.

“We put in the acceleration package and it paid off,” David said of his Kent-affiliated unlimited hydroplane team. “I was able to get the overlap on Kip (Brown) and (Jimmy Shane) and take the lane.”

David went on to turn back Shane, the defending Columbia Cup champion in the U-5 Graham Trucking boat, for the victory. Shane stayed on David’s hip the entire five laps, but David built a two-second lead by the end of the third lap and kept that advantage to the checkered flag.

On the importance of being inside, David added, “It really is. Jimmy is the future of the sport and he is really fast. That team gives him a great boat and he is going to be out front for a long time.”

Brown and the U-95 Spirit of Qatar arrived at the score up buoy too early and was penalized back to seventh place. Jon Zimmerman in the U-9 Fox Plumbing presents Team RedDOT finished third.

David and the unlimited hydroplane field now turns their attention to this weekend’s Albert Lee Appliance Cup at Seafair. Racing starts Friday on Lake Washington, continues Saturday and culminates with the 4:45 p.m. final Sunday. For a schedule, visit www.seafair.com.

David is a four-time winner at Seattle and the defending Seafair champion.

At Kennewick, Sunday racing started out routinely with no one challenging David for the inside at the start of Heat 2A and cruising to a victory over Zimmerman who finished second.

Kelly blowover

But Heat 2B had to be stopped when Bonney Lake’s J. Michael Kelly blew over in the U-37 Beacon Plumbing as he entered turn two running outside Shane and Brown.

Kelly was checked out and allowed to stay in the pit area afterward, but damage to the boat was severe.

“I’m all right,” Kelly said. “I feel terrible that the guys are going to have to spend (the week) repairing the boat. We lost a prop, but we are not sure when. We could have lost it at impact.

“The boat got light,” he added. “I had full canard, but I couldn’t do anything else. I closed my eyes because I thought I would get hurt on this one. Fortunately, I didn’t.”

In the restart, Shane took the inside lane away from Brown on the backstretch before the start and controlled the heat with Brown second and Brian Perkins third driving for U-21 GoFastTurnLeft Racing.

Heat 3A matched Shane and David for the first time in the weekend. Shane timed his run around to the one minute “score up” buoy perfectly and used lane one to hold off David for all three laps, scoring an impressive heat win. Zimmerman ran third with Perkins fourth.

Heat 3B saw the second blowover accident of the day. Kelly Stocklin replaced Ryan Mallow in the U-100 Leland Unlimited early in the day and was racing Mike Webster for fourth place when he went completely over on the backstretch. The boat rotated past 360 degrees and landed on the transom. The heat had to be stopped.

=====

PHOTO BELOW:

Steve David and the U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto zips to victory on the Columbia River. COURTESY PHOTO