WA Speed Boat Club March Newsletter

Dates to remember!!!!
29th March 2015 Practice all classes 10am till 3pm.
Please let your class captains know if you will be there.
7th April 2015 General Meeting 7pm.
Please let’s all be there.
12 April 2015 Round Five.
Please let’s see all boats on the water.
Commodore and Secretary Report.
The 2015 season is moving very fast and pleasingly we are making good headway with our club.
Our member numbers are increasing steadily and we are seeing a stronger contingent of drivers
and boats on the water.
It is encouraging to see our young 15 HP drivers Tamika and James testing the waters in the 25
HP class, well done and keep it up.
A very big thanks goes to the APBA WA Council for purchasing and providing a 25 HP class boat
to help develop this class in an ongoing effort to revive the class to its former glory.
Thanks Dave Foord for your time and effort ensuring the safety and conformity of the boat and
for offering to tow the boat to and from race meetings.
Thanks also go to Gary Smith and your crew for dragging the 15 HP junior club boats around to
and from races and practice, enabling junior participation.
As we see Tamika and James moving up in classes, we hope to see our juniors Bonnie, Sophie,
Maddie, Gabby and Jayden growing the 15 HP class and taking the hand of any new junior
drivers that come on board to show them the ropes.
You junior drivers will be the future backbone of our sport and our club.
Regrettably we have lost a long standing Displacement driven by Des Leeder. Des has sold his boat
and we believe he is hanging up the towel for now. That leaves us with only three Displacements
until such time as Les Smith gets back onto the water.
Les was plagued with a serious flaw in the design of his boat which led his team to withdrawing
the boat for safety reasons.
The displacements are an important class within the club providing exhilarating racing. We would
be keen to see some new drivers in this class.
The F3 Tunnels are holding together with only a few bits falling off Ben’s motor, damaging his
prop and gear case and the rough water at round four damaging one of the Motzo Racing boats.
Both boats are on the way to recovery to ensure that Jono has some competition at Round Five,
after all he has now had the taste of winning at Round Four, well done Jono.
As a matter of general interest for the new club members, the F3 Boats currently running at the
club as 1250 Super Stock are all in the order of about twenty years old. These boats are held
together with tender loving care and almost run on the smell of an oil rag.
This is an economical class of racing and the boats are run on a very low key budget.
Anyone interested in racing the F3 class should get in touch with Ben, Jono or Mark for
information.
The combined F1 and F2 class is coming back slowly with three boats now competing. We hope to
see some new interest in this class in the future which will provide competitive close racing.
We have had some fresh interest in the Cruiser Class. This class is drawing the attention of boat
owners who fall beyond the current rules of the Cruiser Class by way of boat size and a few other
technicalities. The committee, along with the APBA WA Council is currently working on revisions
of the class rule in an endeavour to accommodate these prospective new drivers. We hope to
achieve this by the start of the 2015 / 2016 Season.
Good news is the prospect of racing returning to Lake Towerrinning on the weekend 31st October
2015, subject to all the necessary approvals. The committee is working on the applications as we
have secured the venue thus far.
Keep an eye on your newsletters for updates as this is sure to be an event of note.
We would like to thank Noel Adams for his generous donation of the Ray Johnson Memorial
Perpetual Trophy and the three small Trophies which will be awarded on Round Five Race Day.
It was decided to trail our race day planning meeting on test and tune days. This is not proving
successful as we only seem to get the attendance of the handful practicing on the day and a few of
the regular helpers.
It has been decided to move this planning back to our Tuesday Night General Meetings as
previous.
We once again call out for HELP PLEASE. The same people are doing the same work and filling
the same positions at every race day.
Sounds a bit boring, Yes.
Gets a bit boring you bet.
We need to get some new helpers on board to assist with the running of our race days.
Let’s see some hands up. Full training will be provided and the only cost is your time.
If you can wave a flag, cook a sausage, talk, walk, write, serve a drink, carry light objects, drive a
boat with a skippers ticket or do just about anything, we can use your help.
See you all at our meeting on 7th April.
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February's race day had its usual dose of drama's but more importantly we had good racing and a
fun time. The weather started perfect in the morning and the wind picked up later making
conditions a little rougher with the odd boats passing by throwing up some wake wasn't the best
either. It's all part of what we do and where we race, which is still arguably one of the best places
to race in Australia.
Again we split up the tunnels in 2 classes, the F1 and F2's raced together and the F3's raced on
their own. This allowed 3 boats in each race.
The F3 tunnels had a great day out with Mark Motzouris taking the first scratch race. He was then
put back to 25 sec on the second, which allowed Jono Motzouris to take out the next race and
taking his very first victory. Rod Clarke did the honours and took Jono for his obligatory dunking!
My day was over after that race, had a bolt come out of my gear box, which chewed my propeller
up and the vibration caused some cracking. Jono managed a couple more victories and was
smiling all afternoon and the rough conditions caused Mark’s boat to crack on the stern.
The F2/F1 tunnels welcomed Mike Britten back this race day and he was smiling as per usual.
Confusion reigned supreme on some of the clock starts but the boys sorted it out and still had
fun. Noel Adams' F1 dominated the racing. Mike's boat is as solid as usual and Mark's F2 loved the
rougher water as the afternoon went on.
Noel ran with the displacements in their last race but after leading, engine problems caused him
to pull out.
We are still always looking out for new drivers and I or any of the tunnel boat crew can help you
out if you want to get into this class, so please don't be afraid of getting in touch.
Thanks also, to all those that help us on our race days, we really couldn't do what we love without
you.
Ben Smith
Report from Ken Clarke
Hello Boat Racers : March race meeting has come and gone , it was a fantastic turn out boat wise
as we had 6 Tunnel’s, 3 Displacement’s, 2- 25hp’s and 5 Formula Future’s (juniors) .
We had some hiccups before racing started:
1: our Paramedic was down South relaxing (thought racing was on the next weekend) oops.
2: Rescue 1 had a little problem with someone not checking to see if the Bungs were in before
launching it, another oops. Once all these problems were sorted out we got the racing underway,
but guess what, then we had a little problem from the tower with a mix-up with the flags.
With all this action happening, racing went off fairly smooth, no major incidents.
Tunnel’s had a fairly good run for the day with Jono finally breaking the ice with 2 wins and the
boy’s giving him the usual dunking (no longer a virgin racer), Ben had a minor hiccup, dropping a
bolt out of the gear-case and hurting the prop .Mark’s F2 was back on the water after opening it
up on T&T (not as bad as we had imagined), Noel in his F1 is still getting used to a very minor
steering glitch. With the displacements it was business as usual apart from tower prob’s, all
drivers seemed to have an incident free day.
Juniors are getting quicker each race; look out seniors they are after your boats in a few years’
time. Well done to young James, stepping up and having a drive in a 25hp for the 1st time against
Tamika, both these drivers had a lot of seat time in 15hp and 25hp, well done. Next T&T is
scheduled for 29/3/2015 unless you wish to use the water in between, keep your class captains
informed to organise staff.