Edmonds hydroplanes ready to race in Detroit this weekend

When the unlimited hydroplanes visit Detroit this weekend for two races, Edmonds will once again provide 25 percent of the fleet.

Scott and Shannon Raney’s Miss DiJulio presents J&D’s and Kelly Stocklin’s Bucket List Racing both have arrived in the Motor City for the event.

Stocklin is following up on his best performance ever at the Seattle Seafair race. He has been busy making new propellers for the upcoming event. Several times in the past two races, the boats propellers have broken. Fortunately, Stocklin has a CNC machine and can build new propellers in-house.

The Raneys’ boat that will appear in the Spirit of Detroit Hydrofest also is coming off two of its best performances ever. “We have made great improvements and are now just one small step behind the top dogs,” Scott Raney told My Edmonds News. Raney has been working on engines for one of the other teams, the Miss Rock, to help improve their reliability. He’s one of the old-school racers, where you share your skills with others teams.

Raney also revealed that he has found what may help the team make that next small step forward. “We were coming in after the heats and finding too much water in the back of the boat,” he said. “The added water was both making the both heavier and affecting the balance. We found a leak in the fitting that uses water to cool the strut. We have repaired that and hopefully eliminated the water problem.”

This weekend is unusual as the Detroit event is running two races: the President’s Cup on Saturday and the Gold Cup, the sport’s most prestigious trophy, on Sunday. Detroit is known for being a rough and difficult race course, so all the boats need to be careful and conservative to make it through the weekend.

Six additional boats will be racing against our Edmonds duo. The complete list of entries is

U-1      HomeStreet Bank                    Jimmy Shane

U-3      Grigg’s Ace Hardware           Jimmy King

U-9      RealTrac                                  Andrew Tate

U-11    Miss DiJulio presents J&D’s    Tommy Thompson

U-12    Graham Trucking                    J. Michel Kelly

U-13    Spirit of Detroit                      Bert Henderson

U-99.9 CarStar Miss Rock                 Kevin Eacrett

U-440  Bucket List Racing                  Dustin Echols

The Spirit of Detroit is the former Graham Trucking II and has been purchased by Dave Bartush of Detroit. This will be the team’s first race and will be driven by Canadian Bert Henderson, an unlimited rookie.

Qualifying is on Friday and racing starts Saturday. Follow all the action here on My Edmonds News.

— By Harry Gatjens

  1. Thanks for the hydroplane coverage. There is never enough media for these teams of rare boats.
    Congrats to My Edmonds News for especially helping us keep up with our two local teams who work so hard to keep this sport going.

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