Friday, Jul. 27, 2007

Columbia Cup morning report: Friday, July 27, 2007

By Jody Moore, hydro.commentator

This morning started off with a fairly stiff wind and memories of last year's wind delays. But by the time the course had opened up at 9, the wind had calmed and Steve David had perfect conditions to make the first runs of the 2007 Lamb Weston Columbia Cup in the brand spanking new Oh Boy! Oberto.

"We're still working out prop, turn fin and wing situations," David said of the new boat. "We ran 160 and something earlier. That's the fastest we've ever run out here. We need five miles an hour to be tops. Mike and the team are working on that diligently, and we're just going to go faster."

David's qualifying mark of 160.599 mph lasted for only a few minutes, as Dave Villwock captured the top marks in the Miss E-Lam Plus, running a lap of 165.687 mph. Villwock and company have won three straight races this season, a proud achievement against a highly competitive field.

Ken Muscatel got in the show with a lap of 147.717 in the U-25 Superior Racing, and David Williams qualified the U-48 Lakeridge Paving for its first ever race with a lap of 148 plus.

Several other boats took to the course, led by J Michael Kelly in the U-13 Spirit of Detroit, who had an impressive 157.9 lap taken away because of an N2 overspeed violation.

Greg Bertram in the U-9 Conover Insurance and Brian Perkins in the U-21 Meyers' Auto Tech both ran but failed to meet the 130 mph qualifying minimum. Perkins ran a 115.455 lap while getting a feel for his brand new boat, then shut down because of a loss of gearbox oil pressure.

"It's really big and it's a handful, but it's something I've got to get comfortable with," Rookie Perkins said of his new ride. "We had the gearbox pressure went away so rather than take a chance and burn up some equipment, we shut the boat off."

Boats will have a chance to qualify again later this afternoon before the Dash for Cash at 5:20. Several boats were in the pits but did not run, including the U-1 Formulaboats.com II and U-5 Formulaboats.com. The teams were thrashing to get their backup boat ready to go after it was pressed into service to replace the U-1 that was damaged in the Gold Cup two weekends ago.

Also not running was the U-10 Todd Hoss Mortgages and U-37 Miss Beacon Plumbing. The U-100 Mirageboats.com arrived midway through the first session and wasn't ready to run in time, while Jimmy King tried to get the U-3 Todd Hoss Mortgages/Ronald McDonald House fired up and onto the course. The boat was towed back to the dock and put on the trailer, where the team began the process of changing out the Allison engine for another.

More qualifying will come at 2 p.m. today, along with the Shafer Motors and Round Table Pizza Dash for Cash at 5:20.

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