League-leading powerboats proved their mettle yesterday, winning the Chesapeake Trophy’s two major races at speeds of up to 130 mph on the Patapsco River, outside Baltimore harbor.
Throwing up fountains of spray as they tore under Key Bridge on the 6.4-mile-long rectangular course, the biggest, fastest boats in the fleet – the Super-Vee boats and Super-Cats – brought a two-day race calender, organized by the Chesapeake Bay Power Boat Association, to a roaring climax.
After the waters calmed, the lead in the American Power Boat Association’s national championship league remained unchanged. The fastest boats were again fastest.
In the Super-Vee class, Pier 57’s technicolored Fountain speedster retained its first-place standing with an awesome display of power, averaging 79.74 mph.
“At the start of the race, we took off and ran away with it,” said Art Lilly, throttleman in the Pier 57 Super-Vee. “We ran the first leg as though it was the last.”
Lilly and driver Jeff Harris kept the competition in their wake for the entire 100-mile race, whipping round the corners and over the choppy waters with an ease that was deceptive.
Although the river’s surface, with a one- to two-foot chop, was relatively calm for off-shore power boats capable of powering through six-foot seas, a combination of wind and current churned up the water against the base of Key Bridge, sitting halfway along the course, and creating rollers.
“You can’t read the water until you’re right on top of it,” said Lilly, a veteran racer from Millersville, after the race. “When you’re running at 120 mph, if you hit it wrong, it can be trouble.”
In the other major race yesterday, Hugh Fuller and Jerry Gilbert took Super-Cat honors in their league-leading Fountain-Mercury. Their white-hulled boat has so dominated the class this year that it carried a 1,200-pound weight handicap – 500 pounds of it added after their last victory – into yesterday’s 12-lap race.
And, for the first 10 laps, the extra weight seemed to be dragging them down. They were having trouble keeping contact with the pace-setting DonQ Cristal. As the 10th lap started, Fuller told Gilbert they might have to settle for second place, which would have given them enough points to retain their first-place spot in the league.
But on the final two legs, they found a winning turn of speed, overhauling the bright blue DonQ just as the sky darkened with a threatening thunderstorm, which, had it arrived earlier, could have forced the race’s cancellation.
Their average speed was 89.97 mph.
“We were driving more aggressive, carrying more speed through the turns. We were more on edge,” said Fuller. “Two or three times, we almost hooked [spun] the boat.”
In third place was Xtreme/Credit 1USA.com, with veteran Jack Carmody driving and owner Dan Jackson at the throttle. Carmody, a former national and world champion, came out of 1997 retirement to try to steer the boat up from its seventh place in the championship league.
He and Jackson had spent less than an hour together at the boat’s controls before yesterday’s race. Carmody’s challenge: to get away to a good start and be aggressive in the corners.
“When you have a throttleman and a driver, it’s like two people trying to drive the same car,” said Carmody. “It calls for some coordination.”
For the first half of the race, Xtreme/Credit was trailing, but as the two got their act together, it steadily edged its way into contention.
“The boat’s awesome,” said Carmody. “It has a lot more speed potential. I’m looking forward to the next race.”
Jackson said: “We started good, and Jack’s great in the corners, as fast as we wanted to be. I don’t think we were doing less than 75 [mph] in any of the corners. Not bad for Jack’s first time out in two years, and our first time together in the boat.”
Xtreme/Credit would have performed better, said Jackson, had they chosen the propellers with an extra inch of pitch. “We had to work at it really hard to gain just a couple of miles,” said Jackson.
One of the few boats to hit real trouble yesterday was the Utz-sponsored Pier 57 entry in the factory-designed class, the power boat equivalent of NASCAR auto racing.
It “hooked” a turn, its stern spinning round and plunging the bow into the water as it ran into the wake of two other boats on a corner. Its crew was unhurt, but the gimble housing on its drive was snapped.
