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Coming Home!!!!
N-22
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Nate Brown & Randy Demoss, First Test On Lake Tapps, 1982
Scott
Harger Driving in 1983
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Statistics and Other Fun Info
Date Ordered: 06/16/81 Hagg Lake Oregon Date Started:
10/12/81 Date Finished:
05/01/82 First Race: 05/30/82 Length:
17’ 6” Width:
9’ Designers/Builder:
Don Kelson Hydros, Mike Hanson Painter:
Dale Van Wieringen Drivers:
Mike Hanson, Scott Harger Courtesy
rides:
Mike Campbell, Bruce Dietsch and Jerry Hopp Records:
1 mile record 85.751 Lake Spanaway 08/08/85 Near Records:
04/10/83, 06/05/83, 04/06/85 1st Place: 4 2nd Place: 10 3rd Place: 3
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Waiting For Us Outside Don Kelson's Shop, 2007
Bob
and Mokie Admiring Our Hydroplane, 2007
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Scott Harger (Scooter) and Bob Bolam (Bobby), 2007
“Picture
Of The Year”, 2007
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First Task, Removing The Deck, April 2007
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Prolog
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In The Beginning
The rest of the story….
In June of 1981 Kathy and I were watching a boat race at
Hagg Lake in Oregon. Don Kelson and I were chatting on the shoreline. I
mentioned that I would like a new boat built. Don asked. Do you want the
original design or are you interested in ordering our new design? That
really sparked my interest. Kathy and I went down to the boat shop the
next week and Don showed us the new design concept. We were sold
immediately on the new design. Some of the many new features were: canted air traps; a
wider right sponson, heavily laid over right side non-trips; new cowlings
and deeper belly pan. The canted air traps assist with gently bleeding the
air out from under the boat. The wider right sponson and laid over right
side non-trips, assist with cornering.
The higher cowlings added additional driver protection. The deeper
belly pan lowered the driver and engine – again to assist with the
center of gravity and cornering. On that day, we became the first customer for the new
design. Actual construction started on the NEW hull October 12, 1981. It
was completed on May 1, 1982. Kathy and I took many lunch breaks and detours home in
order to take lots of pictures of the construction. Today, those photos
will be assisting GREATLY in the restoration project.
Bob, Bob Miller, Linda, Spence Redmond While the boat was being built, I started to work on
building the engine and having the trailer prepared. At first I decided to
build an aluminum 215 Cu In. Buick V-8. That project was moving along
nicely until I started getting nervous about how much it was going to cost
to build and maintain the Buick engine. They are lightweight and powerful,
but susceptible to catastrophic failure. The engine rules for our class had been recently changed
to allow the Chevrolet 229 Cu In. V-6. That sounded interesting. I had
recently read an article about a dragster in California running the V-6 in
the small block engine class. I called the owner of the dragster; he and I
had a nice conversation. Finally he asked what are you going to use the
V-6 in? I said a hydroplane. From that moment on the conversation got real
technical and he was very excited about what I wanted to do. He proceeded
to give me the direct phone numbers to the General Motor’s engine
development and testing department in Detroit. He gave me the part numbers
so that I could order prototype engine hardware directly from GM.
The guys at GM and I were having a pretty good conversation until
they asked me, what are you going to use this engine in? I said a
hydroplane. He said you guys are crazy and hung up… but I did get quite
a bit of information being the call terminated. The many nice things about building a Chevy V-6 engine is, almost all the high performance stuff built for the 350 Chevrolet, fits into the V-6 - pistons, push rods, valves, valve springs, rods (with a little modification, .50 thinner on the rod skirt). The V-6 showed great promise because it was considerably lighter then the 221 Cu In. Ford engine allowed in the class, only 50 lbs heavier then the Buick and it developed 342 horsepower. The Chevrolet engine developed more then enough horsepower to compete against the Ford and Buick engines.
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History
First Engine Test, Randy DeMoss, Mike Hanson and I, 1982 The first test on the water was May 26, 1982. It was on
Lake Tapps. The test showed us some promising results but you can never
really tell until you are up against your competition. Our
first race was May 30, 1982 on Green Lake in Seattle. Green Lake has the
reputation of being the fastest body of water in the United States. Our
first thoughts that day were that the record was ours to take. The water
was perfect, the air was perfect and we thought our boat was the best boat
ever built. Our first heat slightly changed our initial optimism. The fuel
line disconnected from the bottom of the fuel tank and every gallon
of racing fuel emptied into the bottom of the boat. Thank goodness Mike
decided to shut the engine OFF and not try to restart the boat. 1982 ended up with us burning 24 pistons and not finishing
two consecutive heats until Labor Day weekend on Green Lake in September
1982. The problem ended up being the distributor. I thought I had locked
down the timing advance. It turns out the HEI ignition has two advances,
one mechanical and one electronic. The engine was running at 60 degrees
advanced timing. It had lots of horsepower until the pistons melted at
1700 degrees. At one race we
damaged the sponson bottom. That was at Alter Lake in July. The right
sponson had to be totally rebuilt after the race. Mike Hanson drove all of
the 1982 season. During 1983 we ran 13 races, finished 10, had three first
place finishes, 2 second place finishes and 1 third place. We ran over the
world record two times before something happened. The rudder bracket
failed after 3 of 5 laps running over the world record. We achieved fourth
place in the national high points. With Mike’s increasing driving
demands, we asked Scott Harger to help us out for the 1983 season. Scott
drove 9 races and Mike drove three. In 1983 we showed the boat at the Seattle Center custom
car and boat show, many shopping malls and other charity events.
During 1984 we participated in 9 races and finished 9
races!! We had 1 first place, 5 second place finishes and 1 third. We won
the Coors Classic: (accumulating the most points over the season at
certain races). Scott drove for 2 races in 1984 and Mike drove 5 races.
Bruce Dietsch drove for us 2 times that year. The boat sustained some
damage to the left sponson at a Lake Sammamish race. It also suffered a
cracked right sponson at Lake Cushman.
The Repaired Damage from 25 Yrs ago For 1985 we ran an extremely limited schedule. Primarily
record courses at Lake Lawrence and Lake Spanaway. On Lake Lawrence, we
were over the world record when the crankshaft seized. In both races we
were over the world record. At Lake Spanaway we set the 1 mile record.
That is a course of 1 miles and 5 miles distance. The good news, the
World Record was now 85.751 miles per hour average. The bad news, the
record only lasted until the next heat. Roger Ottwell driving the
Honeyhush III re-took the record when our starter solenoid failed and the
engine would not start. That starter solenoid problem may have been a
premonition. At one point during our between heat inspection, we
discovered a frayed steering cable. Our boat was sold that day and we hadn’t seen the
hydroplane in more then 22 yrs.
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Future Plans
The new adventure begins again with our
radically designed hydroplane. My current plans call for a total
restoration of the boat back to the way she was the day we pulled her out of
Don Kelson’s shop. New Update – we are going to now put the
Chevy V-6 engine in, make it exactly right. I plan to display her: at car shows with our
1955 Chevy; at wooden boat shows in our area; and at vintage hydroplane
events. My dream has come full circle. I saw my very first hydroplane race in 1955 and became hooked on boat racing. My favorite car was my 1955 Chevrolet that I had in high school. Now we have our 1955 Chevrolet, Josephine, and our hydroplane. And oh yeah, Kathy was born in 1955. I’m beginning to sense a theme developing here….
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Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to give many, many thanks
to my wife Kathy. Thank you Scott Harger and Mike Hanson for your support over the years. Last but not least, thank you to Nate Brown, Mark Evans, Don Kelson, Eddie and Jerry Kelson for you help making this dream become a reality.
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Our
Racing Shirt
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Brand
New Demoss Special
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The personal aspect of boat racingBy Kathy BolamBoat racing was not just getting the boat ready each week and racing it. It included a lot of things. The other boat racers and their families became a part of our family. Each week there was a race, we all worked together to help things run smoothly. We had to get the boat and ourselves ready and travel to the location; we raced in four states so sometimes it meant taking time off work to race. Many times there were lots of us camping at the race site so we would visit, share food, and get to know each other better. The kids would play together and grew up knowing each other sometimes better than they knew their friends at home. Some races had organized events the day before the race for the families. Our kids will never forget the potato sack races, three-legged races, or jumping off the big sand dunes at Cullaby Lake in Oregon.
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Even Rosie our dog and mascot was involved. She would sit on the deck and
watch, as we worked on the engine or boat.
When anyone had a problem with their boat, it was pretty common
to see lots of people from your class and others gathered around helping
with ideas, parts, and encouragement. It was important to everyone
to get each boat out on the water. One year, a driver in our class was seriously injured. The boat
racing family did all they could do to help them out including raising
funds to help them. There wasn't any question they would be there
for them. So, when the opportunity to get our boat back and restore it came up, it was easy to figure out that was something Bob would want to do. We weren't surprised when some of our friends from the 1980's showed up to help us. That's our family. We've heard that many of the boat racers from our era are looking for their old boats or one from their class to restore. No wonder the "Vintage class" was born. So ... boat racing isn't just building, fixing, and racing boats.
It's mostly people gathering with a common interest making a family.
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Bolam's Express - Coming Home
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