the competition that was on so many of
our minds! She was the only driver to
have three solid finishes going into
round four. With a few drops, we
combined round four with seven boats.
Hmmm. A seven boat heat. You would
think that would rattle her cage a little
bit, no? Nope. She stayed on her “A”
game for all six laps during round four,
even holding off a top racer as they drag
raced to the finish line! Congratulations
Kyle Morana for your first FE National
Championship in P-Ltd OPC!
Give him “hope”. Or was it “rope”?
Day One:
It was the final heat of P-Hydro and
Doug Twaits, Jr. and I were in
contention for the podium. I got him at
the start but I knew he had a faster boat.
I couldn’t understand why he was
staying on my hip the whole time. I
swear I overheard his pitman say, “give
him hope”….but I later realized that he
said, “give him rope!”. Well, it worked,
sort of. At about lap four and rounding
turn two, I hit the buoy and the slalom
ski ball went a record 76.8 feet!
Fortunately, my boat didn’t miss a beat
and I could hear more “hope/rope”
comments coming from Doug’s corner. I
was now a lap down, so I finished the
race the best I could. After finishing, I
stared at Doug with a confused look on
my face and after he reviewed the points
again, he busted out in laughter. He
thought I needed to DNF in order for
him to win the class and when he saw
me hit the buoy, he thought his hip
hugging tactic worked. But, my boat
kept going, so he was seeing the first
place slip through his fingers with each
remaining lap. To his surprise, he
actually had enough points to get first
place with or without my slalom record
bounce attempt. It was a fantastic heat.
Jump to Day Four:
In P-Ltd Hydro, I got some
redemption. But, I need to back up a bit.
Unfortunately, 84 of 168 pounds of
Doug’s racing gear was lost by UPS
(found three weeks later in Salt Lake
City, Utah), so he was really racing with
one arm tied behind his back for four
days. He was able to get some boats up
and running and with some loaner
equipment, was able to add a few more
classes. He borrowed Lohring Miller’s
P-Ltd Rigger, after Brian Buaas
PROPWASH
6
November 2012
30 and Insane 34 mono. He also
graciously invited us to his home for a
very nice dinner!
FE does not have a specific sprint
Catamaran class, but there are so many
very good RTR cat hulls out there that it
made sense to offer it as an exhibition
this year. The class “made” the four boat
minimum in about five hours once
announced! Needless to say, there are a
number of FE racers that like racing cats.
Currently, they are only allowed to run
in our four minute “Offshore” classes.
Congratulations to Brian Buaas for
winning this class with his Aquacraft
Motley Crew Catamaran hull.
The highlight of the event has to be
P-Ltd OPC. We had a very solid group
of racers entered in this class and after a
few rounds, it seemed like the
competition was getting the best of many
of us. For instance, I flipped while
playing in Buaas propwash in one heat,
Buaas cut a little aggressively exiting
turn two and took out Darin Jordan for a
Dairy Queen in another heat, and Darin
broke a cable in round three. After round
three, we all realized that 15 year old
Kyle Morana and her Top Speed 3
(named Kylie’s Revenge) wasn’t fretting
2012 FE NAMBA Nationals
(Continued from page 5)
the UL-1 motors performance peak. You
see, there’s a fine line between that
performance peak and having a 215
gram paper weight that stinks up your
pit area.
Leonard Feeback was able to pick up
his first National Championship in
nearly 40 years by winning 1/10th Scale
Vintage Hydro.
Mark Grim put his rigger skills into
an FE framework and ran P-Hydro and
P-Ltd Hydro. Russ Stark ran a brand
new P-Ltd JAE rigger and worked on
tuning it throughout the four rounds and
got progressively faster with each heat.
Susan Stark-Osendorf, fresh off of her
Pahrump swim, entered her Insane 30
into the hottest contested P-Ltd Sport
Hydro class. Wayde Bloedorn, with a
newly purchased Whiplash, is still
kicking himself over a cut buoy in P-Ltd
Sport Hydro as he finished 4th place
overall. And, last but not least, Steve
Lopez ran a few classes with his Insane
Lenny Blake’s motor turned paper weight
Leonard Feeback takes the “dive in the
lake” after his first FE championsip
Brian Buaas white Aeromarine Cat, the
“Snowman Too”
Kyle’s dunking with a little a little assist
from Brian Buaas