An Inside Look at the Seafair Final
This past weekend in Seattle, there was a lot of talk about team driving tactics by the U5 and U7. I’d like to provide some insight as to what I saw and was part of during the final heat. I’m not defending anybody’s actions and I have no agenda other than telling what happened.
During the final heat, I was on the radio for the U3 and was standing next to John Walcker of the U7 and H1 Official Doug Brow on the pier. During the score up period, it became obvious to me around the 3:00 minute mark that the U7 was going to settle into Lane 1 and had the potential of being very early, going too slow or possibly jumping the gun. It’s the chance they were willing to take to win the race. With us being the trailer, I communicated to John that if a call was going to be made on them, he needs to let me know what he is going to do because our plan was to get over the line and head straight to lane 1 at turn 1 to start tracking boats down in hopes that there would be calls on the boats in front of us. With the 80 mph rule violation, a boat that is called has 2 options. They can move to the outside or take a 1:00 penalty.
At the 1:20 mark, it was obvious that the U7 was going to have difficulty making a start in the position he was in without dropping below the 80 mph minimum speed. So, they took the only chance they could, put it in the officials hands and hope they don’t get called. At the moment the 80 mph infraction happened, John Walcker was on the radio and talking to Doug Brow asking what he should do to get out of the way. They couldn’t move to the outside because they would have chopped off the field and they couldn’t back off because we were coming up right behind them. The safest thing to do other than pulling in the infield was to continue on until things cleared out and hope there were infractions on other boats.
In summary, the U7 was trying to win a boat race. Their only chance was from the inside and they took that chance and it didn’t work out. The same thing happened to us in the 2nd heat. When I got back to the truck after the final heat, I heard a number of teams complaining about team driving and I was shocked. After a long discussion with John Walcker after the race, he was totally shocked and assured me that they were in no way trying to team drive. John Walcker is one of my best friends and if he tells me that, I have to take his word. If he did tell me they were, then I would have said nothing and moved on. We would work it out on the race course.
It’s my understanding they have no communications between them during the race and if they wanted to really team drive, the U7 would have vacated lane 1 and let the U5 slide in. I didn’t really pay attention to what was happening with the U5 and U1 as I was watching our boat and helping Jimmy navigate the rollers and other boats he was tracking down. If something happened after the start, I can’t comment on it because I didn’t see it.
Michael Hall
An Inside Look at the Seafair Final
This past weekend in Seattle, there was a lot of talk about team driving tactics by the U5 and U7. I’d like to provide some insight as to what I saw and was part of during the final heat. I’m not defending anybody’s actions and I have no agenda other than telling what happened.
During the final heat, I was on the radio for the U3 and was standing next to John Walcker of the U7 and H1 Official Doug Brow on the pier. During the score up period, it became obvious to me around the 3:00 minute mark that the U7 was going to settle into Lane 1 and had the potential of being very early, going too slow or possibly jumping the gun. It’s the chance they were willing to take to win the race. With us being the trailer, I communicated to John that if a call was going to be made on them, he needs to let me know what he is going to do because our plan was to get over the line and head straight to lane 1 at turn 1 to start tracking boats down in hopes that there would be calls on the boats in front of us. With the 80 mph rule violation, a boat that is called has 2 options. They can move to the outside or take a 1:00 penalty.
At the 1:20 mark, it was obvious that the U7 was going to have difficulty making a start in the position he was in without dropping below the 80 mph minimum speed. So, they took the only chance they could, put it in the officials hands and hope they don’t get called. At the moment the 80 mph infraction happened, John Walcker was on the radio and talking to Doug Brow asking what he should do to get out of the way. They couldn’t move to the outside because they would have chopped off the field and they couldn’t back off because we were coming up right behind them. The safest thing to do other than pulling in the infield was to continue on until things cleared out and hope there were infractions on other boats.
In summary, the U7 was trying to win a boat race. Their only chance was from the inside and they took that chance and it didn’t work out. The same thing happened to us in the 2nd heat. When I got back to the truck after the final heat, I heard a number of teams complaining about team driving and I was shocked. After a long discussion with John Walcker after the race, he was totally shocked and assured me that they were in no way trying to team drive. John Walcker is one of my best friends and if he tells me that, I have to take his word. If he did tell me they were, then I would have said nothing and moved on. We would work it out on the race course.
It’s my understanding they have no communications between them during the race and if they wanted to really team drive, the U7 would have vacated lane 1 and let the U5 slide in. I didn’t really pay attention to what was happening with the U5 and U1 as I was watching our boat and helping Jimmy navigate the rollers and other boats he was tracking down. If something happened after the start, I can’t comment on it because I didn’t see it.
Michael Hall