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Andrew Tate, who scored his
first career win at Seattle last year, was third in season high points and the Sports'
2016 Rookie Of the Year. He subsequently won this year's Madison Regatta and
looked to have won at Seafair again for a second year in-a-row before being
handed a one minute penalty for hitting a buoy. 2016 Courier file photo by
David Campbell. (Image source:
madisoncourier.com)
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Uhm? What happened to those Bluest Skies You'll
Ever See, Eh? As apparently Dudley Doo Right didn't approve of Smokey the Bear's
newly minted U.S. Travel Visa documents to help extinguish the roaring Fires in
British Columbia...
The Amazing lack 'O any reliable media
coverage regarding Seattle's two premiere sporting events culminating Sunday,
August 6th left me perplexed! Then again perhaps it's just a sign of the times
of how little the onslaught of Amazonian Transplants here Don't give a Rat's Patooy!
Although in fairness to the NHRA's Northwest
National's, I did skip over to it being shown on the main FOX TV Channel during
the litany 'O commercials during the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship
event taking place at Road America, for which I tuned into since Thar weren't
NO Freakin' live broadcast of the Unlimited Hydroplanes on Lake Washington.
As it was enjoyable seeing the new Daytona
Prototype International (DPi_ classes first victory by somebody other than Cadillac!
As Scotty Sharp's Extreme Speed Motorsports brace of Nissan Onroak DPi's
finished 1-3, with the Brazilian Speedster Pipo Derani taking
the Chequored Flag.
Yet I spent the day deliberating if I'd stay
true to giving my local CBS TV Affiliate KIRO7 the middle finger over their
pulling the plug on a six and-a-half decades plus tradition of airing the
Seafair Hydroplanes race live in favour of a 90mins "Canned" evening
Highlights package, which naturally clashed with my evening listening to Speed
Freaks.
Against Thy better judgment I attempted
clicking on the live streaming link to KIRO7 provided by H1 Unlimited late afternoon
and was surprised that when I opened it, it simply began playing the end of the
Boeing Air Show; EUREKA! I might actually get to listen to the Unlimiteds final
and Speed Freaks uninterrupted.
thus I sat thru two support races, as Greg
Hopp in a spirited duel with Dave Warren, won the GPW Final, appropriately
driving the No. 12 festooned in Seattle Seahawks livery.
then funniest part of the entire weekend was
the Tunnel Boats, nee West Coast US Formula 1 Power Boats, where the top two
competitors of the 12-lap Enduro' competition, comprising of a course featuring
five left turns and two rights saw the most comical ending!
As the race's leader, #62 Chris Fairchild inadvertently
thought he'd won and stopped after passing the white flag, for which apparently
he didn't heed the Ad Nausea reminders by the female broadcaster 'bout the
white flag means there's one more lap to G-O!
Thus the second place driver reportedly from
Minnesota, Ya Sure Yuh Betcha? won the race. As I believe it was the #36 driven
by Eric Froncek, albeit the HORRIFIC US Formula 1 Powerboat Tour website claims
his home city is Bay City, Michigan.
As I probably
spent nearly an hour's time trying to find the results for Sunday's Seafair
Support races, specifically the West Coast Formula Boats race, for which the
Official US Formula 1 Powerboat Tour website only has 2016 information on it;
WTF!
Whilst the live
streaming announcers attempted some humour when proclaiming On Air that with
the five to the five minute mark being moved four minutes, we'd be racing in
fourteen minutes; Hya! But remember that delay to tow-in a stranded Formula 1
boat On-course taking on water...
While it's an important portion of all boat
races, the starting procedure for the day's three different series were unique
to each other, with the H1 Unlimited Hydroplanes 5-minute "Milling"
period being Uber' critical in determining who gets the most coveted inside
lane one.
And the announcers did notice it and call out
that the driver I was rootin' for, Andrew Tate in the U-9 Les Schwab Tires had
clipped a buoy during this portion of the race.
As I believe it was the U-21 Albert Lee
Appliance, having made major repairs in a week's time with Brian Perkins at its
controls who'd been extremely close to Tate as they maneuvered for lane
position.
Whilst I won't
crack any jokes 'bout Tate's vision
being obscured by the Purple; Err Smoky Haze filled skies wafting down from Up
North Eh! Being a factor to his mistake...
Also believe it was Perkins who got lane one,
with the U-1 Miss HomeStreet of Jimmy Shane on his "Six" in lane two,
as four boats ran side-by-side intoTurn-1 with the U-12 Graham Trucking on the
outside and Tate's U-9 hiding in the middle between the roostertails!
It was a fantastic race, as Jimmy Shane
opened up a sizeable lead, with Tate pulling into second place, having
dispatched the others. And then Shane hit some rollers and the U-1 was flying
high out of the water, reportedly some five feet airborne!
As
Shane's U-1 Hull leapt out of the water again on the next lap, allowing Tate to
pass him for the apparent victory on the final lap! And as the boats spooled
down returning to the Stan Sayres docks, the audio cut out, the sound dropped
mightily as the FUCKING 5 O'clock News with some soft Serve "Human
Interest" story 'bout people enjoying Seafair abruptly cut in before we'd
gotten to hear what should have been Andrew Tate's victory speech; SHEISA!
Yet wondering about that apparent buoy
violation I waited 'N waited to see if I could ascertain anythingy' via my NFB
Newsline for The Blind telephone service, since I still get much of my news
thee 'Ol Fashioned way, via newspapers...
Hence, I vainly tried the Associated Press
for Washington and The Seattle Times, since they're the only two local choices
that provide 7 Days News coverage; Uhm, sort of, since they didn't feature any
breaking news.
As I finally tried searching the H1 Unlimited
official website around 8:34PM Pacific during one of Speed Freaks countless
commercial breaks, but NOOOOOOOOO! Nothing posted yet.
Thus after the conclusion of Speed Freaks I
simply tried Goggling' the World Wide Web thingy and was Cornfuzed when the
Seattle Times Sports/Other Sports section Online only revealed that Tate had
been indeed penalized some 15+ minutes afterwards, being assessed a One minute
penalty which dropped him all the way to last place, P7 - with Jimmy Shane
being declared the eventual winner.
As I'm NOT a Fan of The Seattle Times
continuously blocking Online access with FUCKING Subscribe Now banners
swallowing the entire page, whilst the NFB Newsline version is apparently
Seattle Times-lite, since it doesn't
offer access to the entire Newspaper, especially the Sports section; URGH!
and the Tacoma News Tribune publishes it's
news one day late with NO weekend service, while the Seattle Post Intelligencer
is a Shell of itself, now just a pretty anemic Online only edition...
While lastly, as typical, the H1 Unlimited
website just wrote about the outcome, but conveniently left out the overly long Official's decision
taking over 15mins, which surely left many Fans going home thinking the wrong
boat had won.
While Shame
On You KIRO7 & CBS for pulling the Plug on live Hydroplanes coverage.
As I hope those K-Tel Records Infomercials paid you handsomely! And I hope your
coveted TV ratings for your 90mins Canned program SUCKED!
