1983 west coast racing - Powerboat Archive

HEHADTHEGH
Bob Nordskog and his 38-foot Scarab had the Southern California coast to themselve
(] hortly before lhe drivers' meeting
):-lpreceding the MBRA's Channel
Islands race April 9, Howard Quam, a
familiar face on the APBA national
offshore circuit, introduced himself to
MBRA President Bob Nordskog. Quam
might as well have been just dropping
by on his morning walk through the
Oxnard, Calif., marina, except for the
fact that he lives and races on the East
Coast.
"When I saw him, I thought he had
the wrong ocean," said another APBA
tour regular, Betty Cook, who was
about to give her new Kaama drives a
second open-ocean test on her 40-foot
Formula catamaran, after breaking in
the APBA season opener in New
Orleans the previous week.
But it seemed no accident that Quam
was on hand, if even as iothing more
than a casual spectator, for the MBRA's
second race of the season. "I sure wish
we could all get back together," he told
Nordskog, referring to the name-calling,
backbiting, mudslinging and other
political pleasantries
-
not to mention
the negative publicity generated by the
investigations of various members of
the Florida offshore connection
-
which have widened the rift between
the East and West Coast racing communities
during the past few seasons. "I
miss California," Quam admitted, perhaps
speaking for others besides himself,
"and I think your group is doing a
great job out here."
Heck, anybody who's run for fun
with the MBRA could've told you that,
46lPO\/ERBOAT

ANNELDIALED
n the MBRA's first race through the Channel Islands
Howard; offshore racing is alive and joined Nordskog's 38-foot Powerboat
well on the West Coast. The fleet continues
to grow, as does the number of mile Open Class race, along with a 30-
Magazine Special in the two-lap, 130-
media representatives at each event. foot, Arneson surface drive-powered
Competitors come from all over California
as well as Washington, New San Francisco. All three were running
Thunderbird driven by Larry Spergel of
Mexico and Texas. If it gets any bigger, within striking distance of one another
there will no longer be just one national until about the halfway point ofthe first
circuit.
32Yz-mlle stretch from Oxnard to Santa
Twenty-six boats were scheduled to Barbara, when Spergel's Arneson
make the start at Oxnard, headed for drives suddenly self-destructed. One
the oil derricks north ofVentura, then drive's housing and trim post separated,
to Santa Barbara, and back again. Cook j cracking both the housing and the fin.
By Jim Harmon
And when one goes, the other goes, as
Spergel found out: As the boat started a
360-degree turn, the drive dropped
down, swung over and hit the other
prop. Both looked like spent shrapnel
after the race. "The gear box is fine,"
Spergel explained, "but from the tubes
on down is totaled." The boat had hit a
submerged object during a practice run
in the Bay Area the day before, but
Spergel couldn't say whether the same
thing might have happened during the
race. "I was sort of concerned," he adr"{:.
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OFFSHORE PERFORA,IANCE REPORTS/47

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Seven miles out, one of Cook's transmissions popped out of gear
- as it had the day before -
(Continued from page 47)
mitted, "because this course runs over a
series of lobster traps. I wonder if anyone
knew that."
Cook, in the meantime, had also
experienced some problems, but she
was still running when Spergel broke.
"We'd gone out yesterday, and one
transmission kept popping out of gear,"
she said. "Seven miles into the race, it
did it again, so we had to stop and
restart it. I figured that was sort of a
bad sign, so we decided not to go too
fast." Just before the first checkpoint,
the offending transmission blew, putting
Cook out ofthe race, so she, throttleman
John Connor and navigator
Dick Clark started back to Oxnard on
the other engine. Not to be upstaged, it
broke, too. "After that, it was a long
tow back," Betty said later. "I guess
the only good thing is that with this
.
and Betty knew something was up.
Spergel was running well until a surface drive came apart, taking the other one with it.
Recovering from a bad start, Cohen (bottom) won the Production Class race, edging Smith, who kept his business interest in mind.
98/POVERBOAT

ffiJtr:::flX,fiffi
In classes VI and VII, DePiero (left) and Freitas were both solo acts:Alien was the only finisher in its class, X88 the only entrant'
boat, you can get out on the wing and
take a sunbath."
That's OK, though, because while he
may prefer having someone to run
against, Nordskog doesn't mind being
by himself. It was kind of a nice morning,
anyway. Besides, by now he's
used to the feeling. Most of the Open
boats which attempt to stay with him
wind up in pieces, and the Scarab's
twin turbocharged MerCruisers leave
the rest ofthe class leaders far behind.
Powerboat Magazine Special cruised
the first 65-mile lap in exactly an hour,
and came by the start/finish boat for the
second and last time at 1:55 for the
overall win, his seventh in the last eight
races and number 93 in his illustrious
career.
Finishing second overall and frrst in
Class III (Production) was War Cry, a
30-foot Scarab. Another Production
boat
- and another Scarab driven by
Larry
-
Smith was less than 30 seconds
behind. "I backed off a little bit at the
end," joked Smith, who owns Scarab.
"You don't want to beat a good customer,
right?"
Despite his impressive record, Cohen
has found offshore racing somewhat
diffrcult: At the Sweetheart race a couple
of years ago, he got off tn a great
start headed north, while the rest of
the fleet went south. At Channel
Islands, though his boat was pointed
in the right direction, Cohen had a
dismally slow start and, reverting to
form, got lost a couple of times. He
headed toward the wrong set of oil
platforms at Ventura, taking Smith
and his triple-engine 38-footer right
along with him -
"I was sound asleep,"
said Smith -
and both boats followed
the shore for seven or eight miles. In
order to make the finish, Cohen had to
be directed around the buoy at the
southern end of the course by another
competitor. All in a day's work.
Ed Muse, who flew out from Mabank,
Texas, for the race, was fourth, six
Don Sequeira's 23-foot Alley Cat finished second in Class [X, 10 minutes behind Gust.
minutes behind Smith, in a 31-foot
MerCruiser-powered Excalibur entered
in Class IV. Fifth overall and second
in the Sport Class race was George
Johnson of Seattle, in a S0-foot Triton
powered by three
- count'em - fuelinjected
Mercury 2.4-lriter outboards.
No later than a few seconds into the
race Johnson could count only two,
however, as the gear case and lower
unit on one outboard disintegrated at
the start. "It was like throwing a grenade
in there," said Johnson, who's
used to such problems with Executone
on the unlimited hydroplane circuit,
but is still learning the offshore ropes.
He's apparently learning fast, because
the wounded Triton was still able to
average nearly 60 mph for the race.
Johnson's only competitor in Class
II was Jeff Scher in Schiada, a 30-
footer usually driven by Ron Spindler.
As Scher hit the far rougher water
north of Oxnard, the boat's rubber
gunnel molding came off and was
blown into the boat, hitting Scher and
crew Kathy Nemeth in the backs of the
legs. "We had to stop and take it off,
which took a few minutes," said Scher,
"but we ran over 70 most of the time to
make up for it." Most of the time, that
is, until a rod broke five minutes before
the finish, but Schiada was able to
limp in on one engine.
Scher wasn't the only one to shut
down for repairs. Class III competitors
Rick Bowling, in Gone Again, and
Tom Hays, in All Risk,bothhad mecha'
nical problems, although Bowling's
were only temporary. After a blazing
start, he backed his 27-foot Excalibur
(Continued on Page 118)
OFFSHORE PERFORA,IAN CE REPORTS/99

HE HAD THE CHANNEL
DIALED
(Continueo from page 99)
down because of an ongoing water
pressure problem befbre r.rne of his
throttle cables vibrated ioose. necessit:rtirrg
a 10-minute pit stop. "No Nyloc
nut," explained Bowling, who made up
enough ground once he was running
again to finish eighth overail and
third in the class.
Hays, meanwhile. felt a vibration in
one of two Arneson drives on his 30-
foot Sutphen three miles short of the
first checkpoint. The plate holding the
drive shaft suddenly broke away, and
the Arneson was done for the day.
Hays, like Cook, had a threehour canoe
trip back to Oxnard. "It was a brand
new unit, with maybe two or three
hours on it," said Hays, "and when I
felt that vibration, I kept thinking,
'God, I hope everything holds together."'
The race had no shortage of breakdowns.
Class IV driver Al Myers, in
Pacific F/yer, broke a drive plate halfway
to Santa Barbara. And Ross
Kennedy's My Gucci, the only boat
entered in Class V, had a cracked
block and couldn't make the start.
This happened after Kennedy decided
that the problem was the starter,
replaced the unit and made it as far as
the start,/finish line only to break down.
All four Class VI boats were one big
breakdown, including the oniy boat in
the class to finish. Alien. a 24-foot
Cheetah jet boat that driver Van
DePiero converted to a single-engine
Arneson drive over the summer, blew
the seals on its transmission. but somehou'
hung on to be the last official finisher
with a scorching one-1zrp, 54-mile
time of 2:10. That r.r'as the good nervs.
Jack Davidson, in a 26-footer called
Sa,nger. was the first to go, the victim
of' a broken push rod in mid-course.
The boat had already died once and
been resiarted before the finai lrlow.
"It's enough to make you pull your
hair out," Davidson complained iater,
"but what do you do? Sit out there in
the ocean and fix the damn thing? We
just turned around and hobbled back
. . .figured it wasn't our day."
There was plenty more exciteitent
in Class VI. Miles Foster and Boat
Works, a Sanger Ailey Cat with a
blown Chevrolet, had started the race
slowly, but by the time Foster made
the turn at Santa Barbara, he was
passing boats ieft and right' "We
must've passed 14 boats," he said later.
On the way back. running next to the
Triton, Foster went off the toP of a
wave and came down so hard that the
engine quit. Started up again, the boat
ran another mile, then began listing
dangerc.usly to starboard. "I didn't
know we'd cracked the hull until all
this water burst in," said Foster. Betty
Cook's Kaama crew got to Boat Works
first with a rope, and then the Coast
Guard showed up. "Five Coast Guard
guys jumped onto mY boat with a
pump that didn't work," Foster continued.
"The weight almost sunk us. If

we hadn't been tied up, it would've
been all over."
Also enlivening the class were Roger
Myers and Too Long, turbocharged
SKV. Myers'race ended six miles short
aZ4-foot, of the finish line, when a rod
broke. "But it couldn't have broken
right off the bat," said Myers, who was,
not amused. "No, we had to beat ourselves
to death first. My co-pilot's foot
got stepped on, then the carburetors
got out of synch, and the engine wasn't
getting enough air. We stuck the
bumpers under the hatch to keep it
open, and the back seat fell out because
of the stress." Myers was not the least
consoled by the fact that he was leading
the short course competitors when
he broke.
Lone Class VII er-rtry Clhuck Freitas,
driving a 23-footThunderbird, survived
with nothing worse than a cracked
prop to finish 1Oth overall and win the
class, whileDurty Mutha's Ed Sterling
came back from a retirement which
iasted all ofone race to take yet another
jet title. For Steriing, it was what he
called "a fairy tale finish," as his 23-
foot H allett crossed the finish line and
immediately died with one final sputter.
"I'm black and blue," said Sterling.
"We beat the heil out of ourselves. Taik
about bruises." Durty Mutha's fuel
pressure regulator wasn't working
properly, and as a resuit, Sterling was
pumping 20 pounds of pressure into
cylinders that were built for nine.
"Every time I jumped a wave and
backed off, it exploded," he said.
Finally, Vern Gust, in Red Mountain
Special, a 2l-foot Challenger powered
by a singleJohnson outboard, took the
Class IX race, with Alley Cat., a twin
MercurlT-powered 23-foot S anger driven
by Don Sequeira, 10 minutes back in
second. On the rough-water leg up to
Santa Barbara, Gust was nothing short
of incredible, keeping most of the bigger
ciutboard and inboard competitors -
Cohen, Bowling, Johnson, Myers and
F'oster behind him. As far as problems
go, he had few. "The guy riding with
me [Ron Krech] forgot to hook up the
trim tabs, but that's about it," said
Gust.
As far as problems go, Thad Findley's
24-foot Easy Rider had a few
more. One of its engines had a }iinked
fuel line, and wouldn't fire,at the start.
By the time Findley got it going, the
field had left, and he had no choice but
to play catchup . . . which. might have
been easier had his.trim tabs not been
stuck. He managed to get one up, but
the other stayed down, making the
boat push off to one side, running on
its chine. By the time Findley. fixed it -
nothing more than a loose plug, of
course - the race was too far along, so
he headed back to the dock, His summary
of the mor:ning: "I can'tremember
the last time I had such a good time."
That thought seemed to go for almost
everyone, and the banquet luncheon
after the race added to the fun. Mr.
Quam might be advised to bring a few of
his East Coast friends along next time,
to show them what they're missing.