Ready, Get Set, Oh No!

Two weekends ago Kevin and I went to lake Havasu, AZ. with Justin, his associate editor and Dave, his new sales guy. Our purpose for this trip was that Kevin and Justin were partners in the Mark Hahn memorial race. It is a jet ski endurance race. Basically, the first team or individual to complete 30 laps around the course win. Kevin thought it would be a good idea for his magazine (Personal Watercraft Illustrated) to be well represented and he wanted to have a first hand experience of what a racer might go through participating in such an event.

Kevin put a lot of pressure on himself getting ready for the race, but no matter how hard he tried it just seemed like nothing could go right. He didn't have enough time to break in the engine. A part was put on wrong and had to be put on the right way two days before the race. The keys to the mule (off roading contraption that was going to be used to pull the boat out of the water for refueling) were lost and we had to hot wire it to get it to start. Kevin's truck got stuck in the sand and we had to have it pulled out, then another truck wouldn't switch into 4 wheel drive and got stuck....the list goes on and on.

The actual race went something like this...All of the boats were lined up in the water. The racers had to stand in the sand and wait for the signal. When the shot fired, Kevin got an amazing start. He got tons of air as he jumped on his boat and took off. We all watched on the beach as the boats flew by. I was getting nervous when I didn't see kevin fairly early on because he got such a good start. Then when I saw some boats on their second lap my heart sunk. A few minutes later I saw Kevin slowly cutting across the water towards us. He looked so defeated. I tried my best to comfort him as the mechanic looked the boat over and discovered that the CPU had gone out on his boat. It was just another thing that went wrong that weekend. He didn't even get to make a full lap :(

Eventhough the race didn't go the way we wanted it to, It was fun to take a road trip and hang out with good company. Next year will go much smoother now that everyone knows what to expect and plan for.

Go to watercraft.com to check out some of what kevin has been working on for the last year!