Idaho Racing News

The United States Sprint Boat Association continues with a sport that originated in New Zealand.

On Saturday June 7, Lexa Marketing in association with several local venders and sponsors produced their first weekend of racing with the United States Sprint Boat Association. Marsing is the first stop of the sprint boat racing series that travels to St John, WA, Albany, OR, and Sequim, WA. The sprint boats will return to Marsing on August 9 as they continue the series points chase.

With Marsing as the first man made “dug” track in the U.S. it is only fitting that many of the drivers in the USSBA are from this area. In fact the largest team in the series is based just two miles east of Marsing, ID. Team Tsunami is located in a shop owned by local resident Lee Rice who saw his first sprint boat race in New Zealand, where the sport originated. Rice has become the de facto leader of the group of 15 to 20 loosely organized competitors that run up to 7 boats. All of the team members keep their boats at Rice’s shop and they all work together to make sure that the boats are ready for the competitions spaced two to four weeks apart throughout the summer season. “We’re all about sprint boat racing”, Rice said, and added, we “all have spent money on working on or leasing the track”.

As with most forms of racing the camaraderie among the competing teams is like a big family. One of the teams from Albany, Oregon broke down in Pendleton, Oregon on the way here and many of the local teams rallied together to help but help came by way of a relative in LaGrande, who loaned a Suburban to tow the trailer, and another competitor brought the tools and equipment.

Like a family the races have also become a social event for many competitors. Lee Rice said that “the best part of the whole is we socialize… we socialize six to seven days a week” sometimes.
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-------Information about Sprint Boating in the Northwest --------

The Marsing sprint boat track was leased and dug out in 1997 and has been operated with varied success in the past due to either good or poor marketing. Glen Lexa of Lexa Marketing was pleased with the turnout this Saturday that initial estimates placed at over 2000 spectators. The turnout at last years final event was estimated at just over 300, which is not enough to keep the sport from dying out in this area. It was felt by some that to let it die out in the area where it started would be a shame. Lexa expressed hope that the August 9 event would be even larger without as much upfront costs due to publicity and marketing. With a new track being dug this last year in Washington the sport is growing to the entire northwest from the roots of Marsing, Idaho. Lee Rice of Team Tsunami expressed a desire to see the sport expand to the south and southwest and grow even more in popularity.

Sprint boat racing started in New Zealand in the early 1980’s in rivers and gradually moved to scraped out areas next to rivers. Later this sport expanded to Australia where the first dug out track was built. In the early 1990’s the sport came to Lewiston, Idaho and in 1997 the first dug out track in the U.S. was built in Marsing, Idaho. Since then three more dug tracks have been built in Spokane, Richland, and Woodland, Washington.

The sanctioning body that manages the competition is called the United States Sprint Boat Association or the USSBA and is based in Pasco, Washington.

The course in Marsing as with other dug tracks are set up with narrow channels and islands through which the navigator must direct the driver with hand signals. Missing a turn and sliding up on the bank or turning down the wrong channel will give the team a “did not finish” or a DNF for that round. A DNF in a qualifying round can be made up but a DNF in the elimination rounds will cause a team to lose at that point in the competition. The course on Saturday was almost one mile long and some of the boats were running through it in less than 60 seconds.

The boats are getting faster every year with most of the boats weighing less than 1000 pounds and some of them in the Super Boat class having close to 1000 horsepower. They can accelerate from 0 to 80 mph in as little as three seconds and can turn hairpin turns at over three gravities. The boats average 12 to 13 feet in length and can turn a corner at 60 to 70 mph in a distance as short as the boat itself. The spray kicked up by the boats can travel over 100 feet and the sights and sounds of a sprint boat during a run are incredible. No other form of motorsports can duplicate the total experience for the spectators and the competitors.

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--Final Results and winners at the Sprint Boat track in Marsing, Idaho--

In the A400 class only one of the four teams in the qualifying rounds made it to the finals. That was boat number 151 named “It’s all about me” with driver Kyle Patrick from Albany, OR, and navigator Theresa Gibb from Salem, OR. They were the winners of the A 400 class through attrition but still had to make their elimination run through the course with out a mistake to win the event.

In the Super Boat Class the winner of the final elimination round was boat number 5 named “Climax” driven by Dave Pfeiler of Caldwell, ID and navigated by Amanda Vestal of Marsing. Second place in the Super Boat was the Super Boat number 70 named “Tsunami” driven by Bill Root of Caldwell, ID and navigated by Tom Potier of Nampa, Idaho. Third place in the Super Boat catagory was boat number 711, the “Screaming Eagle” driven by Lee Rice of Marsing, and navigated by Marvin Wright of Kuna, Idaho.

In the Super Mod Class the husband and wife team of Scott and Lori Ackerman from Colfax, WA won first place while Trevor Peterson of Bonanza, Oregon and Loren Peterson of Richland Washington took second. Dan Morrison with navigator Micki Zozinsky came in third and Tim Cummings and Mike Fuller took fourth place.

The team of Benson Atkinson and Travis Teichert of Marsing was fourth fastest in the Super Modified class during the qualifying rounds but went off course during the first elimination round and received a DNF (did not finish) and was eliminated. Lee Rice and Marvin Wright of Team Tsunami in the supercharged “Screaming Eagle” were chasing mechanical problems throughout the day and even though they had one of the fastest times of the day could not start the final elimination round and placed third in the Super Boat class.

There were 23 boats and teams competing this last Saturday at the Marsing Sprint Boat Track of which 8 were from the Southwestern Idaho area.