Thursday Sept 13th- We are in sunny southern California for the Thunderboat Regatta on Mission Bay in San Diego! The weather is perfect for hydroplane racing. We’re looking at temps in the high 60′s in the morning and mid 70′s in the afternoon. We are sure to see some very fast laps.

The boats are in the pits and we’ll have pics soon. Steve David’s U6 has arrived fresh off of a win at Seafair, of course the hometown U21 guys are here. U48, U10, U1, U5 and of course the U37 Miss Beacon Plumbing (everyone) is in the pit and ready to go racing. The guys jammed to get things ready this morning and allowed for an afternoon off today. U-37.com traveled with the Schumachers and spent the day with the crew and things are looking very good. This team is amped for this weekend and hoping to go home back to back UIM World Champions. Make no mistake about it. This race is going to be run as hard as every other race this season. As we mentioned we will be unable to provide you live updates, however we will bring you updates and photos as soon as possible during the days. At the end of each day we’ll have a U37 Journal recap for you as well.

Friday Sept 14th- It was a great day in San Diego. The boats were fast today and there was plenty of them. The U37 actually turned the fastest lap of the day at 162.9 however it will unfortunately not count due to a fuel violation during the run. So the crew will have to make some adjustments to the boat for tomorrow morning and then it’s time to go racing!

We are having LOTS of problems with internet access both at the race site (where we have NONE) and at the hotel where we may as well have none because it doesn’t work. However, if you’re reading this, we got it working long enough to get you some news.

No huge news for today. Everyone ran well and tomorrow it counts so we’ll have more for you Saturday.

Saturday Sept 15th- What a day in the bay today. Jean Theoret started the day with a fast lap of 163. The U16 immediately went out and ran as hard as they could and put up a whopping 165. Heat 1A saw the U5, U16, U37 and U13. It was an unbelievable deck to deck race for 1 1/4 laps. Theoret nailed the start and pulled the U16 in to the first turn. Coming down the back stretch the 16 caught and passed the U37. Theoret regained the lead in the turn and as they raced down the front straight it was deck to deck. They went in to turn 1 again and only Theoret emerged. The U16 had a complete failure of their PT. No one knew until he was towed back and the damage to the boat was unreal (we’ll have pics very soon for you). Theoret went on to win heat 1A and set up for a good day on Sunday. A side note to this is that the 16 only needed to finish the race to clinch a high points chamionship. So mathematically the U6 has a shot at the high points.

There was other bad luck today as well. Brian Perkins in the U21 host boat lost a gear box and they are done for the season. Congratulations to Perkins who had a good first season at the unlimited ranks.

For you UL fans, Ryan Mallow did not run this weekend as they were unable to get the boat to SD. So you’ll have to wait until Port Angeles to see Ryan run.

We will get you up to date tomorrow evening. We are VERY sorry for the delay in the past two days. A new installment of Jean’s Journal should be up by the time you read this but if not, it will be up soon. Thanks for your patience while we’ve tried to work this out.

Sunday Sept 16- Jean Theoret started out the day with a second place finish which would eventually be enough to get him in the final. The field was the U37, U16, U25 and the U10. Most of the battle in this one was in the milling period. Jean Theoret settled for a second place win holding off David Bryant in the U10. The boat looked to be a good ride. Theoret ran a text book heat and chose to take what he could get.

Later in 3B Theoret ran hard with the U16. As they were in the N turn there was a massive failure on the Miss Beacon Plumbing. From what we saw Theoret was about a boat length behind the U16. Between the apex and the exit pin, Theoret slid out through the U16′s rooster tail. When it came back it was very obvious that the prop had torqued the shaft causing a spiral fracture. When the prop let loose, it shot up out of the water and punctured a hole completely through the rear wing (detailed pics coming soon). It was also determined that the over spin of the motor caused damage to the motor. No worries though. We were planning on putting in a new motor before the final anyway and having to put on a new prop was no big deal.

In the final it was a battle between Jeff Bernard and Steve David. Theoret was a close third for half of the race but didn’t have enough from lane three to get by them. We (u-37.com that is) assume that losing a prop, punching a hole in the rear wing and having to change motors had something to do with this. We don’t know what setup Scott Raney had in mind but he had a fast boat until the prop was lost so he may very well have been planning on not making any changes. Nonetheless Mr. Steve David is your 2007 Bill Muncey Cup/UIM World Champion and we are very happy for that entire team. They built a very good boat last winter and it really paid off for them this season.

With that, we will conclude our updates on the raceday page. It was a rookie season for this webmaster and I’d like to personally thank the fans who have helped mold some of our new features like this page. I’ve met some of you on the W coast and it was a lot of fun. I do want to apologize for the high tech issues to end the season however. That was completely unexpected in cities like Seattle and San Diego but we’ll try to be better equiped for that next year. We had some bad luck this year but I can honestly tell you from what I observed this boat was ready to go racing every time it was asked to go racing. Other things just didn’t fall in to place at the right times. Despite the W/L record it was a great season for this team and they’ll make the proper adjustments for next season you can be sure. While we will not be bringing any more race day updates we will begin to bring you regular off season updates in our “In the Pit” feature. This will be much like Jean’s Journal but from more of a team perspective. There will also be updated pictures during the off season so that you can see what the team is up to and stay up to date on your favorite boat.

Thanks for your support in 2007 and stay tuned because next year you’ll surely want to “Come Race With Us!”