Rolling Thunder Racing News

A look back at some of the highlights of the 2009 season for the Rolling Thunder Racing Team.

GP-88 ran an exhibition at the Wildwood Hydrofest on Sunday. The boat looked great, but upon returning to the pits the crew found a broken rocker and metal shavings in the oil filter. There is not enough time to solve the engine problems before this weekend’s World Championships in Morgan City, La. Tom believes they have identified the cause of the recent mechanical failures and should have them solved for the beginning of the 2010 race season. Good luck to all at Worlds.

GP-88 will be testing this weekend at the Wildwoods Hydrofest. There will be a live webcast of the race on HRTV.

In Beauharnois we broke a rocker in heat 1b and headed home. GP-93 went on to win the ACHA GP Championship. Read more about Saturday at HydroRacer TV.

Tom won all the skiff heats Port Deposit including the final heat on Sunday.

Pictures from Saturday of Ragin’ on the River in Port Deposit, Maryland. JS-7 finished first in both the first and final heats with JS-13 a close second in both races.

More wind and rain didn’t stop the GPs from putting on a great show. Excellent heats all weekend with deck to deck racing that had the large crowds excited. The water was very rough but Tom was able to pilot GP-88 to two firsts and a second in the qualification heats. In the final GP-88 and GP-77 battled for the lead the whole race but both had jumped at the start making GP-7 the winner. Tom also drove Dave Greenlaw’s JS-99 to a victory in the Jersey Speed Skiff final. JS-7 Rolling Thunder will be at Raging on the River in Port Deposit, MD this coming weekend (September 5-6).

In St-Félicien GP-88 was 4th in the time trials, got a first and second in qualifying, but unfortunetly finished forth in the final. The boat continues to run well, as seen in this video of heat 1B.