PORT ANGELES — Chris and Katie Munro of New Zealand continued their dominance at the Extreme Sports Park, winning their third straight unlimited class championship during Saturday’s “Wet and Wild” sprint boat races.
The weather was near-perfect for the return of the sprint boat races at ESP, with virtually no clouds and temperatures in the 70s. Though official numbers are not in yet, race organizer Melody Pozgay thinks there may have been as many as 4,800 people at Saturday’s event.
The Munros of Kiwi Racing held off local team Wicked Racing, driven by Dan Morrison with new navigator Cody Catract, in the finals to win the title. Kiwi had the best time in the semifinals at 39.355 seconds, but Wicked Racing was right behind at 40.471.
In the finals, Wicked missed a turn and got a Did Not Finish. Kiwi Racing just had to finish a clean run to take the title and the Munros, of Queenstown, New Zealand (and based out of Boise, Idaho) put in a solid 39.884 to take the championship. Wicked Racing took second.
Perhaps the biggest drama of the day was provided by the Jolly Rogers team and Garrett Mitchell, who goes by the YouTube personality name of “Cleetus McFarland.” It was McFarland’s first sprint boat competition in the super modified division and he was sharing a boat with driver TJ Burrows.
On his semifinal run, Burrows went up against a bank and swamped the Jolly Rogers boat, which half-sank on the course in the racing channel.
The boat was pumped out, but the engine had gone almost completely underwater.
While Burrows was eliminated, McFarland and the Jolly Rogers crew then had five minutes to get the boat running again and worked furiously on the engine at the track ramp. It took a couple of minutes of cranking, but the engine finally turned over as the team probably went over the five-minute mark by a minute or two. Race officials let it go and McFarland was allowed to race in the semi. McFarland had been doing well in the Jolly Rogers boat all day, but halfway through his semifinals run, he crashed out and didn’t make the finals.
Winning the super modified was Clint Birch and Terry Lovell of Fear Not with a time of 45.921, beating out Purcell’s Racing James Goldberg and Jeff Purcell, who posted a finals time of 48.432.
Winning the 400 classification was a dominating performance by Fat Buddy’s Phil Miller and Amy Thomason, who put in a time of 41.464, beating Black Magic’s driver Kelly Stevenson and navigator Tracy Montgomery’s time of 47.870.
A total of 27 teams entered the weekend races — 10 in the super modified, 11 in the 400 class and six in the unlimited.
The Fear Not sprint boat driven by Clint Birch and navigated by Terri Lovell speeds through the Extreme Sports Park course as a pair of “island hopper” safety crew members watch the action on Saturday in Port Angeles. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
The locally owned Live Wire sprint boat driven by Vaughn Trapp and navigated by Matthew Denson makes it way around the course at Extreme Sports Park in Port Angeles on Saturday. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
The Port Angeles-based Wicked Racing team of driver Dan Morrison and navigator Cody Catract make a qualifying run on Saturday on their home course of Extreme Sports Park. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
The Wayshe Goes racing team of driver Jeremy Souza and navigator Jessica Law tries to qualify in the super modified class on Saturday at Extreme Sports Park in Port Angeles. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
