TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
RON NEWBERRY; Contributing writer
Published: 08/07/1012:05 am

Jon Zimmerman greeted fans with a big smile and the same line.

“Hi! How are you?” he repeatedly said.

Zimmerman, a rookie unlimited hydroplane driver from Maple Valley, was having fun in his first Seafair as a participant rather than a spectator.

He ran out of autograph cards that he signed for fans during an autograph session Friday after the first round of qualifying for the Albert Lee Cup. It didn’t seem to matter that the driver on the card for the U-37 Miss Peters & May was J.W. Myers.

“Nobody seemed to care,” he said. “I just sign whatever they put in front of me.”

Zimmerman filled in for Myers for the second consecutive stop in the unlimited hydroplane circuit. Myers broke bones in his foot during a crash at the Gold Cup in Detroit last month and is on crutches.

Zimmerman, 45, was a driver for Ken Muscatel’s U-25 team at the time of the accident and had qualified and raced in two heats at the season-opening Madison (Ind.) Regatta but didn’t drive in Detroit. Muscatel loaned out his driver to the U-37 Miss Peters & May team, and Zimmerman took advantage of the opportunity by making the final heat the Columbia Cup in the Tri-Cities.

His best lap of 141.359 mph at the Albert Lee Cup on Friday was the eighth fastest with the third and final qualifying session today.

“He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do,” said Jane Schumacher, who owns the U-37 team along with her husband, Billy. “We told him, ‘Just keep the boat right-side up.’ ”

Zimmerman, an auto mechanic who grew up in Burien, had never driven an unlimited hydroplane on Lake Washington before Friday.

“It’s exciting” Zimmerman said. “I’ve been coming to this race forever, but I’ve always been on the other side of the fence. Now, I’m over here. It’s fun.”