Where’s Richard Rawlings and those Gas Monkey
garage Monkeys when Yuhs need them, eh?
The “big” news is that Tanner Foust joins H1
Unlimited Hydroplanes Livestream Broadcast team this year, as co-host alongside
Brad Luce. As Foust, a four times Rallycross Champion. Along with two Formula
Drift titles, multiple X Games medals and being part of BBC America’s U.S. Top
Gear trio. Has been brought in to help Amp up the Livestream Hydroplanes
broadcast…
Unfortunately I could never hear Tanner or Brad
(Luce) the entire Freakin’ weekend at Lake Guntersville. Can You Hear Me Now H1
Unlimited?
But first off, let’s review H1 Unlimited’s
pathetic reporting upon it’s website. As they may be the fastest boats on
water, but you’d be hard pressed to know who All of the Playah’s are?
No surprise that Andrew Tate in the U-91 Miss
Goodman Real Estate served notice during Tri-Cities testing in May with a top
speed of 163mph plus, with six teams testing. Yet not surprisingly, only four
of the day’s six runners are mentioned. With Gunnar O’Farrell’s spectacular
Blow-over aboard the U-21 Go Fast Turn Left Hydro’. Along with mentioning Cory
Peabody behind the tiller of the U-9 Beacon Plumbing and Jamie Nielsen
skippering the U-11 Flav-R-Pac. But no mention on the other two mystery Hulls
or any of the actual testing speeds…
Thus, with this usual lack of information, I
purposely skipped Friday’s Hydrofest action. Which it behooves Mwah that H1
Unlimited cannot post a daily report at the end of each day, Say What? As this
is a common practice for IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula 1, IMSA, etc.
Then on Saturday, I tried a few times to listen
to the Livestream both via H1 Unlimited’s website and Youtube directly with
zilch, nada, nothing during the morning, Groan!
That afternoon I vainly attempted the same ridiculous rinse, lather,
repeat process of trying to get a functioning Livestream, complete with sound.
Check-Check, One-Two-testing…
Then when the Big Boyz’ should have been
racing, after jacking up my sound level a ridiculous 40 levels, What the Flock!
I suddenly could hear two announcers calling some sort of “Junior” stock race-boat
race, before the announcer began repeatedly calling for a red flag!
As one of the boats had blown over! Noting how
the driver and throttle-man sat side-by-side, Err shoulder-to-shoulder with
helmets, life vests and separate oxygen supply. And with the boat upside down
in the drink’, they shouldn’t even get wet when exiting thru the cutout escape
hatch on the bottom of the boat; unless the roof, presumably canopy was
impacted and damaged…
With said red flag deployed and not knowing
what support series this was? Or how long until the Big Boyz’, nee Unlimited
Hydroplanes would appear, I logged off for the day.
Having subsequently learned this was the Offshore
Super Stock class, with Team Bermuda S-25 having experienced that Blow-over,
with both of the boat’s occupants safely recovered and escaping unharmed before
the safety boats arrived…
Sunday morning I tried again in vain, since I
couldn’t get any sound, i.e.; anybody talking on the “live”Youtube stream,
after having jacked up the volume a ridiculous 30 levels, Urgh! During what
should have been Heat 3.
Didn’t even bother trying again at 11:00AM
(Pacific) before trying one final time that afternoon to tune-in to the finals,
chirp-Chirp, Bueller?
Logged on at 2:20PM and first got a garbled
soundtrack before a litany of instrumental rock songs, for which I’d Arse-sumed
at least the finals would be on time, beginning at 2:30PM? But the music just
kept playing. So I closed the browser and tried logging into the H1 Unlimited
Lake Guntersville Sunday “live” feed again. As somewhere between 2:35-39PM the
page claimed a whopping 766 people were currently watching. Which then jumped
up to 785 after I refreshed and searched again on Youtube for a current live
stream feed. But nothing! As I did this again a few more times before noticing
at 2:52PM Thar were a staggering 813 people watching, Woo-Hoo! Since by this
point I was pretty fed up, and finally gave up in disgust around3:05PM, Sigh!
Some three plus hours later, and not sure what
I was looking for? I checked the H1 Unlimited website one more time before
logging off and Shazam! Sunday evening I finally learned thanks to their
pathetic lack of information, Urgh!
That basically the weekend had been a Bust,
with the majority of the Unlimited action being scrubbed due to inclement
weather. But why should we have to wait until Sunday evening to learn that both
Saturday and Sunday’s action has been cancelled?
Saturday morning’s Heat-1A saw four boat take
the green flag, i.e.; Tate, (U-91) Peabody, (U-9) Villwock (U-27) and Nielsen.
(U-11) And although Nielsen got the jump upon the field, Villwock lost control
and had a major Blow-over, which also damaged Peabody’s Hydroplane from being watered
down! Plus being damaged by debris from Villwock’s Hydro, Aye Karumba!
Then high winds and an afternoon thunderstorm
curtailed any further activity, before high winds all day Sunday cancelled any
further competition. Which if H1 Unlimited had their act together, at the very
least would have put up a quick note informing us of this, so I wouldn’t have
spent two days wasting my time trying to listen to their pathetic Livestream!
BWR Racing said that the U-27 Miss Apollo will
compete at this weekend’s Madison Regatta, presumably in the backup Hull known
as “Sharkey”, the Hull Tate drove in 2023.
Whilst the U-6 Miss Madison struggled mightily
at Guntersville with engine problems all weekend and never got its rookie
skipper Brian Kennedy qualified. But presumably will have better luck this
weekend at its home event, the 75th anniversary of the Madison Regatta.
For which I’d like to think that H1 Unlimited’s Livestream service will be better this weekend? And it would really be nice if they could also tell me what radio station is broadcasting the event? Meaning I could probably actually Hear what’ going on race-wise, without having to Jack U-P my volume an El Stupidio 40 levels, Oh Never Mind!