Columbia Cup returns this weekend to Tri-Cities after pandemic hiatus

It has been almost two years since there has been a competitive unlimited hydroplane race on the Columbia River.

The HAPO Columbia Cup as well as all other H1 Unlimited races were canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic.

That all changes starting Friday, when eight unlimiteds will take to the course in qualifying.

That field of eight marks the lowest number of boats in a Tri-Cities field in decades.

Because of the Canadian border being closed, many of the team members for Dave Bartush live in Canada and haven’t been able to work on the Detroit area boats that Bartush has owned.

Health problems have kept Greg O’Farrell from running his boat, the Miss Madison team elected to race just one of its two boats this season, and Rob Graham is doing the same thing.

Still, the eight here in Tri-Cities still is more than the seven that were in Guntersville, Ala., in late June, and the seven that were in Madison, Ind., on the Fourth of July weekend for the APBA Gold Cup.

Here are the teams that will be here:

▪ The U-1 Miss HomeStreet, with Jimmy Shane as driver.

Shane most recently drove the team’s older boat, the 2007 hull, to victory in the Gold Cup in Madison, Ind. It was Shane’s fifth career Gold Cup victory.

▪ The U-3 Griggs presents Miss Ace Hardware, and driver Jimmy King.

Boat owner Ed Cooper, Jr., only races at one H1 site a year for the past few years, thanks to the sponsorship package Pasco’s Charlie Grigg helps put together.

So the last race this piston-powered boat has competed in was the 2019 Columbia Cup.

The boat arrived in the Tri-Cities on Sunday and has been on display at various locations this week.

▪ The U-8 Miss Tri-Cities, driven by J. Michael Kelly.

One of two boats purchased by Tri-Citians Darrell and Vanessa Strong this past off-season, the U-8 was formerly owned by the Ellstrom family.

Kelly drove this boat to victory in Guntersville, Ala., last month.

▪ The U-9 Pinnacle Peak Consulting, driven by Corey Peabody.

The other boat owned by the Strongs, it was purchased in the off -season from Mike and Lori Jones.

▪ The U-11 J&D’s, driven by Jamie Nilsen.

This boat is owned by Scott and Shannon Randy, who moved their base of operations this past year out of the Seattle area over to Cle Elum.

▪ The U-12 Graham Trucking, driven by Andrew Tate.

Graham lost both of his drivers from 2019 when Strong hired them both.

So this year he decided to race just one boat.

But he made a big splash in early June when he announced Tate would be his driver. The former national high points champion drove the U-9 a few years ago to the title.

▪ The U-40 Miss Beacon Plumbing, with driver Dave Villwock.

Owner Kelly Stocklin decided to add a second boat to his fleet, and the legendary Villwock — the sport’s winningest driver — came out of retirement to both drive the boat and be team manager.

▪ The 440 Bucket List Racing, driven by Dustin Echols.

This is Stocklin’s first boat, a project that he started a few years ago to show people that getting into the sport without blowing a budget can be done.

In addition to the eight unlimiteds, Tri-Cities Water Follies event director Kathy Powell says there will be a strong undercard.

“Five to six GPA boats, four vintage, and a gaggle of 5-litres,” Powell said.

Meanwhile, there have been two different winners so far this season.

Kelly easily drove to victory in the Guntersville Southern Cup race in late June, and Shane followed that up a week later with the Gold Cup victory.

Ironically, neither of them are leading as the national high points race for top driver.

That goes to Tate, who placed second in the Gold Cup and was disqualified in the Guntersville final when he went through a DMZ zone before the race.

Tate has 2,435 total points, while Kelly is second at 2,330.

Shane has not been in the Madison cockpit for every race this season, sometimes sharing it with teammate Jeff Bernard.

Weekend schedule

Here’s a quick update on the weekend schedule: the park opens at 8 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and will open at 7 a.m. Sunday.

Friday qualifying for unlimiteds starts at 1:30 p.m.

The first heat race for unlimiteds is scheduled to start at 1:55 p.m. There are four preliminary heats scheduled for the day.

Heat 3A is set to start at 10:40 a.m. Sunday, the first of four preliminary heats for that day.

The Sunday HAPO Columbia Cup final is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.

A reminder that because of the state being open again, there is no set limit of how many fans can attend this year.

For more information or a more detailed race weekend schedule, go to waterfollies.com.

This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 12:45 PM.