The weekend of January 19th we honored our ACHA class champions at the annual “Gala of Champions” banquet in Valleyfield, Quebec. I’m sure a lot of our fans watched this event on the livestream from Hydroplane Quebec and got some other facts on Facebook or YouTube. A real fun night was had by over 300 people in attendance. In the morning and afternoon meetings various items were discussed but no real changes were made. No tech rules were changed except for the H-350 class which will have some minor adjustments. Most of the time was spent clarifying our current racing rules. We had a GP meeting with ten boats represented and also our two newest GP drivers, Martin Rochon and Jesse Robertson, were introduced to the members. Many good suggestions were brought up by our owners and drivers and these same suggestions will be sent along to the ACHA board to hopefully be approved for the upcoming racing year. The weekend of April 20th and 21st several of our GP teams (6 so far) will be headed to sunny South Florida for the 2nd annual Stuart Sailfish Regatta in Stuart, Florida. While this event may become an official ACHA GP series race at least three teams, GP-25, GP-88, and GP-57, won’t have their boats ready and ACHA felt it wouldn’t be fair for them. I’m also told several H-350 teams would like to go down and get some testing time in so the race promoter might put these guys in on a special event status. You can go to the Stuart Sailfish regatta website for all the information you need. Last year they had great weather and everyone had a really good time and said they can’t wait for the 2013 event.

Well it looks like 2013 will be another banner year for our ACHA series races. New boats in all classes, new teams, and new driver changes make for an exciting summer of inboard racing not to forget the F1 Prop outboards that will be running at Valleyfield’s 75th show. Last week I paid a visit to Claude Bergeron’s shop to see Tom Pakradooni’s new GP boat. Claude tells me it will be a lot lighter and stronger. It really looked great and should be finished real soon. These changes could make Tom’s GP-88 “THE” boat to beat this year. A lot of our race fans always said that Tom’s GP was the fastest Bergeron boat on the circuit. I’m sure Marc Theoret and Eric Langevin  might have something to say about that but if you remember Marc and Tom’s boats were the only Bergeron hulls to win any races these last few years! I say this every year but this coming summer should have some of the best racing in all our classes in ACHA’s five year history.

Until next month, keep warm,

Huey