DIAMOND CUP - AUGUST 20-22, 2010
Lake Couer d'Alene, Idaho
Mother Nature had other ideas about running hydroplanes on Lake Coeur d'Alene during our visit. The weather on Friday and Saturday was nice, but come Sunday morning, it was rainy and the wind was howling!
On Friday and Saturday, the boats were on display at the Coeur d'Alene Resort where hundreds of people came by to look, ask questions and recall their experiences when the races were taking place between 1958 and 1968. The crowd reaction was great, especially when we trailer fired the engines!
The 1957 Miss Wahoo and the 1962 Miss Bardahl were in the pit area with us as we were hoping that a break would come sometime around noon when we were suppose to go out and give our demonstration runs in addition to giving some auction winners their rides. It had been 42 years since an unlimited hydroplane had been on a course so the anticipation was extremely high.
Unfortunately, the wind never did calm down. About 2pm, it appeared to settle a little, so it was decided that the Wahoo, with David Williams, go out and do a test run. Just as David started the engine, the wind came back up and so did the white caps. After a couple of laps, David shut her down, reported that he wasn't too happy about it, and we radioed back we were not going to be coming out. David decided to run a couple more laps before coming in so he did a total of 5 laps for the fans.
