2005 Post-season Banquet

On Saturday, October 29^th, we at Classic Thunder celebrated the end of our 12^th season of racing.  The 2005 post-season banquet was held at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent.  We would like to thank museum director, David Williams, museum volunteers and staff for help in hosting the event.  It was a casual, low-key affair with pizza, pop and other snacks.  The boats on display made a perfect backdrop for the occasion.

After lunch we awarded trophies to the top five season point-getters in Division 2.  Congratulations to the combination of Dave Sacry and Danny Sacry driving the Weisfields to a fifth place finish.  Dave also teamed up with Chris Cootsona in the Circus Circus for fourth place.  Pete Schille’s Llumar Window Film earned third place honors.  The Elam, driven by Jeff Howard finished the season with an impressive second place effort, falling short of the title by a thin 92 point margin.  Division 2 recognitions ended with the Bernie Little Memorial Trophy being awarded for the third year in a row to Mitch Dillard, driver of the Miller High Life.  Division 2 competition was fierce this season and all drivers should be commended.  We had very few racing incidents to speak of .  Respecting each other and each other’s equipment makes for good, clean, fast and fun racing.  That’s what we’re shooting for and it showed again in 2005.  Great job everyone!

We once again were blessed with an outstanding group of rookies this year.  Three individuals earned their wings this past season and have made their mark on the club with their participation.  Dan Clark has been with us for a couple of seasons, but made his rookie debut in a big way.  He fielded and ran three boats in competition but has scratch built a few others in the process.  He does remarkable detail work on the hydros and is looking to add a couple of new ones to his 2006 fleet, including a model of the “Green Dragon” 1962 Miss Bardahl.  Dan also helped introduce the City of Lacey to CT racing by facilitating access at Woodland Creek Park.  He’s a great guy and we love having him around the pit area.  If we can just keep him from injuring himself in the upcoming year, we will consider that a huge success. 

It’s been a while since we’ve had a teenager involved with the club.  Thankfully Tony Minalia changed all of that this year.  Tony and his dad, Danny, joined us in the middle of the season.  Tony got behind the wheel of their scratch built American Speedy Printing and did a very good job in his first laps of racing.  The boat gave them a few problems and was a bit heavy and underpowered, but they learned a lot in the process.  They are already building a My Gypsy for 2006 and have plans to replace the Speedy with the Holset Miss Madison.  We got a glimpse of Tony’s skills when Dale Van Wyk put him in control of his Berryessa Belle at the Silver Cup.  He drove very well in some close, deck to deck action and impressed us all.  He’s got great enthusiasm for the boats and I was pleasantly surprised by his interest in the history of the sport.  He has volunteered at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum to work during this school year.  Tony is a student at Northwood Junior High and also just finished a tough season as fullback and linebacker of their football team.  It’s good to have Tony and his dad involved in the club.  Hopefully more young people will get hooked on the hydros.

The group of rookies is rounded out nicely with Mike Schultz.  Mike started coming around last year and put together a couple of very fast boats at home during the off-season.  He showed up with his Oh Boy! Oberto and caught our attention right away.  He got more consistent as the year went on and completed enough heats to finish seventh in season points with it.  Meanwhile, he finished work on another boat.  He showed up at Angle Lake with a brand new Cellular One.  The boat looks great and runs nicely too.  For the rest of the year he split time between the two and worked on getting used to driving them and working out the bugs.  It’ll be exciting to see what his next project will be and what he does with a little more wheel time under his belt.  Mike had an impressive season and has a great attitude about racing in the club.  You can hear his thundering voice whenever he’s “talking boats” with someone.  Congratulations to Mike on being voted our Rookie of the Year for 2005!  He did an excellent job, as did all of our rookies.

The awards for Division 1 season points came next on the agenda.  This class of racing is the cornerstone of what we do and is, in my opinion, the more challenging of the two.  These vintage boats are more difficult to drive and are much less stable on the water than the normally wider, more modern hulls.  Besides, the appeal of the old boats is undeniable and they have given us some of our best racing thrills over the years.  2005 was no exception.  Competition was often very close, yet seldom did we see boats get tangled up with each other.  Kudos to the drivers, it’s not an easy thing to do.  Fifth place in season points went to Dave Sacry’s Short Circuit, which had a very steady year.  “Battery” Dave continues to improve each season as a driver and made a good showing in both divisions.  Dale Van Wyk had continued success driving a very strong Miss Seattle to fourth place in points.  Miss U.S. was our third place finisher with Mitch Dillard driving.  Pete Schille’s Blue Chip rallied in the second half of the season to take home a second place for the season.  This year the championship was won by a wide margin.  It seems ironic because the racing was so tight most of the time.  Very methodically and rather quietly, Jeff Howard’s Miss Budweiser completely dominated.  When you examine the whole season, you’ll see that his performance just never fell off.  He consistently finished near or at the top.  The boat is just plain old fast and steady.  Jeff has now driven the same boat to two CT championships. That had never been done before now.  Jeff builds beautiful boats and obviously knows how to get the most out of them.  Congratulations to Jeff on his second season title in the last three years!  As champion, Jeff will again get to admire the coveted Classic Thunder Trophy on his mantle, or at least in his shop area, for the whole year to come.

One of the things we try to encourage in CT is good sportsmanship.  Each year we have the difficult task of deciding which of our members epitomizes this aspect of our club the most.  We each toss our selections into a hat and come up with a winner.  This year three guys come out tied for the honor.  We threw those three names back into the hat and left it up to the luck of the draw to decide it.  You know a little about all three nominees, but each has helped us as a club in some way and brings a positive, helpful attitude with them to the lake each time they race.  “Battery” Dave Sacry has been with us for a long time and deserves recognition for his willingness to help us figure out what’s going on in the world of the Nicad, NiMH, LiPoly or other power sources.  For the past several years he has supplied many of our membership with salvaged batteries for little or no cost, saving us all a tremendous amount of money.  His laid back style and unassuming nature only add to what he brings to Classic Thunder.  Thanks Dave.

Jeff Howard is not only a great guy to hang out with, he’s also one heck of a craftsman.  He has now gotten into making plastic parts and has made them available to anyone that has needed them.  He has been acting as our technical inspector and volunteered for duty as our APBA commodore when we found ourselves without one unexpectedly early in the 2005 season.  We admire his skills, but it’s his friendship and dedication that we value.  Thanks Jeff.

Finally, we come to “the chosen one”, Dale Van Wyk.  Dale has got to be one of the most intelligent characters I’ve ever seen around boat racing.  He’s not just interesting…he’s eccentric.  He’s just fun to be around.  Dale is always in there helping guys with a problem that’s come up and coming up with ideas to help get them back on the water.  He’s an unselfish guy that has been into R/C racing for a long time.  We mentioned an example earlier.  He gave a rookie driver a chance to drive one of his boats and coached him along throughout the day.  That’s cool.  This last year Dale got out his old electric R/C race cars and decided to put together a Classic Thunder rally team to compete in a four hour endurance race in Burien.  Two of the three drivers were CT members as was the team manager.  Actually, Dale let me volunteer to manage the battery cycling program in the garage when I realized in practice that I absolutely sucked as a car driver.  He even put Classic Thunder graphics on the cars!  We were underdogs, but finished in second place behind a very modern car with some experienced car drivers.  We had a great time representing CT.  Dale’s a creative type of thinking man racer who we’ve been lucky enough to cross paths with.  He’s an original Classic Thunder member from way back.  When he finally won his first CT race, I think the rest of us were even more excited for him than he was.  I still remember that day at the old gravel pit pond and it still puts a smile on my face just thinking about it.  He’s unique.  I guess that’s what it is.  That’s Dale, our 2005 Sportsman of the Year.

I would like to thank all of the CT members, their families, our sponsors and volunteers for making this another great season of racing.  We’ve got some neat stuff that we are planning for the off-season, which hopefully will include a field trip or two for the club, so stay tuned for announcements by email and on the web site.  I’m looking forward to meeting for some “show and tell” on your new boats and ideas for 2006. 

Thanks again for making Classic Thunder a great club to be a part of!

Sincerely,

Mitch Dillard

Classic Thunder Commissioner