Photos of the Long Sault Regatta

(Please do not use pictures from this site without permission, thank you.) By Christian Bergeron

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It sure seems like Marc Theoret has figured out the one mile course at Long Sault. After a slow start in his heat races, Marc got it all together in the final for his second win in the past two years. This was the first year where 12 GP boats showed up to do battle in ACHA’s first race of the season. Early season favorites Ghislain Marcoux and Bert Henderson had their problems. Both ran out of fuel in their first heats and Ghislain broke a blower belt in his second heat keeping him from qualifying for the final. Bert did make the final and finished third behind Marc and George Kennedy who finished second.  Jimmy Shane finished fourth while Marty Wolfe lead the final until he blew up his gearbox half way through the final heat. It sure seemed like old times in Saturday’s heats as 7 out of 12 starters had problems. By Sunday everyone had their acts together and were running great and the final was very exciting as 7 out of eight boats finished the race.

Daniel Mercier, Bert Henderson, and Patrick Haworth showed up with awesome paint schemes on their boats. The kids had a ball with Bert’s shark face and machine guns painted on the nose of Huey’s new “STEELER” machine. Besides the weather, the weekend turned out to be a great test session for our GP fleet of 12 boats getting ready to do battle for the 2012 ACHA world championship points season. Forgot to mention Ken Brodie also showed up with a cool new paint job but blower problems all weekend kept him out of the finals. After all the smoked died down, it looks like we’ll have another great competitive GP race season. It’s way too early to pick any one boat as a season favorite. Time will tell but this is ACHA’s first season where all the boats left Long Sault in one piece and except for a few minor problems everyone will be a go for our next race this coming weekend in Syracuse.

Until then continued save racing,

HUEY

Results of the Long Sault regatta, first event of the ACHA hydroplane series.

GP

Wow! Talk about anticipation!!!! This will no doubt be the most competitive GP race season in ACHA’s seven year history and I predict the best racing in Valleyfield’s GP history. One that no one will want to miss. Look at all of our new ” Young Guns” wanting to be the TOP DOG this year and then look at our steady veterans and it will all boil down to the survival of the fittest. In the past years there’s always been three to four top running GP boats, but this year anyone of the fleet can win (pardon my pun) on any given Sunday.

Last year Tom Pakradooni ended the year as the man to beat but this year you can take your pick! Patrick’s coming back driving Pierre’s World Champion Henderson hull, Ghislain will be piloting Bert’s ex-crush  (many will argue the fastest boat last year on the circuit), Bert will be back driving Huey’s brand new ” STEELER”, Ken Brodie has reworked his sponsons to keep up with the new boat design, Marc Theoret will be sporting a new blower motor, Mike or Marty coming off Marty’s second place finish in the World Championships in New Zealand, and Jimmy Shane coming off his big win out west this month in Arizona which all adds up to anyone’s game. And don’t rule out Eric Langevin, Marc Lecompte, Norman Shannon and our newest rookie, Joe Sovie, plus Brandon Kennedy will finally be off restriction.

Talk about competition, our race fans won’t want to miss any of this action, believe me. I’m sure most of you have heard about the Lake Havasu GP race this past Easter Weekend where most of the boats got tore up the first lap of the GP final on Sunday. With only two boats able to run, the final was cancelled and Jimmy Shane was declared the winner due to his first place win in an earlier heat race. After Jimmy’s win out west in his GP-10 Charger, it will be fun to see if he can dominate in our ACHA series races back east. His GP boat was easily the fastest boat around the 3/4 mile racecourse in Arizona.   The latest update on Mike Grendell’s GP-45 has the boat going to Bert’s shop and getting a complete overhaul including the new “2010″ updated and redesigned sponsons, which will make it another new style boat to beat, although Joe Sovie will be on restriction for several heats as well as Ghislain Marcoux. By the time Valleyfield rolls around everyone should be off restriction then look out people the “Young Guns” will be coming at you.

Well that’s all the news for now; hope to see everyone in Long Sault June 2nd and 3rd. Take care and continued safe racing.

HUEY

Here are some pictures of the construction of the new GP-777 Stealer hydroplane at Bert Henderson’s shop.  We can imagine this boat will be an other really fast one.

Thanks to Marc Perrier for the pictures and to Bert Henderson to let him in the shop.

April 21 by Andrew Ritchie

Early Marsh